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DADDY’S DAUGHTERS 


NUT BROWN JOAN 

By Marion Ames Taggart 

Author of “ Daddy’s Daughters,” etc. 
With Frontispiece and Decorations by B. Os- 
tertag. $1.50 

Joan is an energetic, lovable girl whose ex- 
periences, when the care of the household 
falls on her shoulders, will appeal strongly to 
the housekeeping instinct latent in every girl ; 
while her love of fun, and especially her friend- 
ships, will find sympathetic response in the 
hearts of older girls and boys. 

“A wholesome and pretty story of a family 
of young people not the least attractive of 
whom is their ugly duckling, Nut Brown Joan. 
Her pleasant fellowship with a boy nicknamed 
Darby is one of the nice things in thife little 
homely iiistory ."—Outlook. 

Henry Holt and Company 

29 W. a3d Street New York 





“What’s That!’’ Cried Sibyl. — Page 45 


DADDY’S 

DAUGHTERS 


BY 


MARION AMES TAGGART 

•I 


AUTHOR OF 

“NUT BROWN JOAN,” “MISS LOCHINVAR,” ETC- 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
G. WILLIAM BRECK 


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NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1906 



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OCT 6 1906 

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Copyright, 1906 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Published September, igob 



TO 

MARGERY WELLS, 

WITH THE LOVE OF 
“AUNT TANTE’S” 
“MAC.” 













CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 

. 

PAGE 

I 

II. 

The Reliable Reddeshes 

. 

i6 

III. 

A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 

. 

30 

IV. 

The Burroughs from Their Burrows 


44 

V. 

Four “Flora McFlimseys” 


60 

VI. 

When Greek Meets Greek 


75 

VII. 

Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 


90 

VIII. 

A Solution? 


106 

IX. 

“Mistress, How Doth Your Garden 
Grow ? ” 

122 

X. 

Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 


138 

XI. 

Up in the Hills Means Down in 
World 

THE 

154 

XII. 

A Double Stampede .... 


170 

XIII. 

Pickaninny versus Amos 


188 

XIV. 

The Solemn Business of Haymaking 


204 

XV. 

A Loan and Borrowed Plumes . 


221 

XVI. 

The Fate of a F^te .... 


237 

XVII. 

Daddy Departs 


254 

XVIII. 

The Tryals Try 


269 

XIX. 

Offence, Defence, Suspense 

• 

286 

XX. 

But, after All .... 

. 

303 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

“What’s That!” Cried Sibyi, . . . Frontispiece ^ 

Dancing on the Lawn 93 ^ 

Fifty-three Dollars and Eighty-five Cents . . 223 ^ 

“ It was Just Here,” She Said 292 


VI 






DADDY’S DAUGHTERS 


CHAPTER I 

DADDY, HIS DAUGHTERS, AND OTHERS 

I T’S certainly rented,” said Anstiss Inglesant, 
wheeling around, and walking backward the 
better to speak to her sisters in the rear. She 
would have been more easily understood if before 
she had spoken she had finished the cookie which 
she was rapidly demolishing, even though she had 
continued to walk straight ahead. 

“What in the world did you say, Anstiss?” 
Sibyl asked in impatient protest at their youngest’s 
inarticulateness. 

“It’s rented!” repeated Anstiss, stubbing her 
toe violently on a branch that had blown across the 
driveway, and swallowing hastily at the same 
moment, a combination that made her choke so 
severely that Gaynor pounded her on the back 
until she returned to her natural colour. 


2 Daddy’s Daughters 

‘‘I felt sure that it was,” said Rosamond, the 
fair eldest Inglesant girl of sixteen. She was 
slender, of the perfect medium height, and lovely 
with the same sort of calm loveliness that still, 
after so many years, charms us in the Unknown 
Woman of the Louvre. 

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter much if it is,” 
said Gaynor, Rosamond’s fourteen-year-old suc- 
cessor. “We probably won’t see much of the 
people; it’s always ‘Us four and no more’ with 
our dear Daddy’s daughters.” 

Gaynor was as full of a sort of flashing unrest 
as Rosamond was placid. She was the daring 
one of the family, the dark-haired, dark-lashed, 
blue-eyed girl, with a great deal of charm and 
cleverness rather than beauty in her irregular face. 

“It would make a lot of difference to us if the 
people were disagreeable,” said thirteen-year-old 
Sibyl petulantly. “It was nice to have the Evans 
place empty and no one to bother us.” 

Sibyl was the tallest of the sisters; a blonde of 
the sort that the French call “ashen blonde.” Her 
fair hair had no lustre, but looked as if it were 
lightly powdered. She was pale, and her eyes 
partook of the greyish tint of her hair. People 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 3 

who knew said that Sibyl was going to make a 
handsome woman. There was no doubt that the 
young lady herself believed that she was not 
merely going to be, but already was everything 
that was desirable in every direction. 

Anstiss, the youngest, who was too happy-go- 
lucky to resent even the annoyance of being re- 
garded as the baby though she had nearly attained 
her eleventh birthday, was totally unlike her three 
elders in every particular. Dissimilar though the 
other three were, yet there was a family resem- 
blance in their slender figures, their tastes, and 
also in a certain air of elegance developed by each 
in her own way. But Anstiss was chubby; her 
round face had neither Rosamond’s perfect oval, 
nor Gaynor and Sibyl’s thinness of contour, and 
it accumulated freckles as cheerfully as the sun 
shines through its spots. She loved homely 
pleasures, kitchens, and humble friends, and the 
ambition of her life was to be as capable as Mrs. 
Reddesh, the farmer’s wife who presided over the 
Inglesant household, and who more than any other 
person contributed to its welfare. Rosamond was 
sweetly even-tempered; Gaynor was quick as a 
flash of steel, but big-hearted and loyal; Sibyl was 


4 Daddy’s Daughters 

fretful and petulant of disposition, but round lit- 
tle Anstiss was sunny and cheerful, loving, and, 
though impulsive, not in the least irritable. She 
was like a plump pillow tucked away at the bottom 
of the family pile of girls to ease the pressure of 
their highly wrought temperaments. 

It was Anstiss who now sensibly answered 
Sibyl’s anticipation of evil. “There are all the 
fields and the trees, and then the old arbor-vit^e 
hedge on our side before we come to the Evans 
place, Sibyl,” she said. “I shouldn’t think we'd 
be able to know whether the new people were nice 
or horrid unless we took a lot of pains to go where 
they could bother us.” 

“There spake Solomonetta again !” laughed 
Gaynor, quoting Daddy’s name for his youngest 
daughter. “But you know they wouldn’t bother 
us if they were nice, Anstiss.” 

“Eh?” murmured Anstiss, producing a cookie 
from her coat pocket and serenely brushing off the 
bits of lint it had collected in the pocket, entirely 
missing Gaynor’s implied criticism. 

A little dog that was trotting on ahead stood 
still, sniffing the air to place the source of the odour 
of cake. When he threw up his head to sniff, the 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 5 

beholder could alone be sure which was his head 
and which his tail. He was a shapeless little 
bundle of long yellowish hair, hanging down from 
the tip of his tail to the tip of his nose till one 
would have supposed that he would have needed 
automobile goggles to protect his eyes. He was 
a terrier of many sorts — it would have puzzled a 
bench of judges to have told what particular sorts 
— who had been bought from unkind boys by 
Gaynor for fifteen cents three years before, and 
his name was Trouble. Beauty was not his pro- 
fession, but under his mop of hair he concealed 
brains enough to have set up several dogs in the 
commodity, and his loving heart was so big that 
it must have been painfully crowded between his 
little ribs. 

When he had satisfied himself that Anstiss was 
responsible for the pleasant smell that came his 
way Trouble turned around, trotted back to her, 
and setting himself directly in her path, rose up on 
his hind legs and waved his fore paws touchingly. 

Anstiss never could resist him when he did this, 
looking out sentimentally the while from under 
his mop — none of the girls could. Anstiss now 
narrowed down the bite she was about to take and 


6 


Daddy’s Daughters 

generously gave all but a very small bit of her 
cookie to Trouble, laying it on his ridiculous little 
tip of black nose for him to throw it up in the air 
to catch, which he instantly did. 

Then Anstiss wiped her hands by the simple 
expedient of drawing them, palms flattened, down 
the sides of her coat, and the quartette, with 
Trouble, proceeded up the driveway to the house. 

‘T wish,” said Gaynor suddenly, perhaps moved 
to hunger by Trouble’s enjoyment of his windfall, 
“I do wish we had something perfectly scrump- 
tious for dinner.” 

Rosamond smiled. ‘‘Cold chicken from yester- 
day, Gay, with lettuce separately, because Sibyl 
and Anstiss won’t eat salad; potatoes, rice, cran- 
berry sauce, — not olives, because Mary Frances 
says we mustn’t use two relishes together , — a 
bread pudding. Oh yes; cream of celery soup of 
yesterday’s larger stalks. Now aren’t those 
pretty dishes to set before the king — and the three 
princesses, his daughters?” 

Gaynor laughed. “It sounds good, Rose-of- 
the-world,” she said. “I’m sure you went out and 
planned dinner with Mary Frances before we 
started.” 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 7 

‘^She always does,” said Sibyl; they all agreed 
in admiring Rosamond. ‘‘It must be perfectly 
beautiful to have everything left from dinner 
eaten in the servants’ hall and never have a thing 
a second time.” 

“And Inglesant Place certainly does look as 
though it ought to have a servants’ hall,” added 
Gaynor, with a fresh thrill of admiration for the 
stately home of which they had good reason to 
be proud. 

The girls had been returning to it up a long 
avenue of trees, planted or left of the forest 
primeval two hundred years ago. The Inglesant 
drive, with its trees, was one of the features of the 
section. At its end, facing the lawn with its rich 
turf, stood the house, a Colonial building of the 
period and style familiar to us all in the Craigie 
house, the home of Longfellow. It had a semi- 
circular portico, with white columns supporting its 
roof; a fan transom surmounted the door, which 
now stood open, its brass knocker hanging useless 
as it revealed the wide hall running through the 
house, and the broad, low staircase with the dark 
mahogany rail, and the hand-cut newel posts and 
balustrade. An old mahogany card table stood 


8 Daddy’s Daughters 

under the mirror on one side of the hall, its half 
width standing up against the wall in a leaf of the 
dark, shining wood. On the table lay a pair of 
worn grey castor gloves, and on the high-backed 
chair beside the table lay a broad soft hat, and a 
walking stick with a curiously carved head. 

The whole place, within and without, was redo- 
lent of a dignity not to be purchased with money, 
but it also revealed to keen eyes the fact that the 
family would not have had much of the latter use- 
ful article with which to have bought it had it 
not been theirs already. 

Stanley Inglesant, the present incumbent of the 
beautiful Inglesant Place, and the beloved 
‘‘Daddy” of these his four daughters, was the 
eighth of his name to come into possession. He 
was a dreamer, a student, a poet, an ultra-refined 
and lovable man, but he had not an ounce of what 
New Englanders call “faculty,” and there would 
have been serious times for himself and the 
children had it not been for Amos Reddesh, and 
his wife Mary Frances. This energetic couple 
loved the place and the Inglesants with inherited 
attachment, savouring somewhat of a feudal 
spirit. Amos and his wife took care of the place. 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 9 

looked after the children, and contrived to make 
things comfortable by ways unguessed by Mr. 
Inglesant himself. 

‘‘ Inglesant Place looks as though it ought 
to have nothing; it is perfect as it is,’' said Rosa- 
mond. Then she added with a slight laugh: 
“Unless it is paint !” 

Gaynor groaned. “You know we could never 
afford to paint this big house, Rosamond,” she 
said. Then she cheerfully added: “Maybe we 
can, though — next year!” 

Gaynor’s habit was to regard everything hope- 
fully. The future always smiled at her, because, 
being the future, anything was possible to it — it 
was only the present of whose tricks and petty 
meannesses one was painfully certain. 

“Anstiss, come and set the table, and, Sibyl, 
you’d better help her 1” called a voice from within. 
Mary Frances Reddesh’s voice, who had earned 
the right to command the children by having 
mothered them ever since Anstiss was born and 
her mother had died, and whose relation to the 
household was rather that of the foundation to the 
house, than that of servant and employers. 

“Til go wash my hands, Mary Frances,” called 


lo Daddy’s Daughters 

back Anstiss willingly. But Sibyl went upstairs 
with a settling of the lips that meant; “No table 
setting for me to-day!’^ Rosamond glanced at 
Gaynor. This sweet and good eldest girl was 
troubled by the growing selfishness of her second 
sister. 

Gaynor tossed her head, and turned into the 
house and toward the dining room in Sibyl’s stead. 
“It’s mean not to take a share both ways — eating 
the dinner and helpingMary Frances. Fair play’s 
a jewel !” she said. 

This was Gaynor’s motto; she had the keen 
sense of justice which is supposed to be more a 
boyish than a girlish virtue; she would have 
scorned shirking. 

Rosamond went in search of Mary Frances in 
the kitchen. It was not long before the stroke of 
a padded hammer on a brass bowl called Daddy 
and the recreant Sibyl to dine. 

Rosamond, Gaynor, and Anstiss stood behind 
their dark mahogany chairs waiting the coming 
of the other two. The dining room was a trifle 
sombre, but it was very beautiful. On the heavy 
old sideboard stood blue china, pewter, and silver 
of ancestral possession, and in the corner was a 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 1 1 

Chippendale highboy with similar treasures be- 
hind its small panes. Whether the Inglesants 
dined meagrely or abundantly, they dined in rare 
dignity. 

“All ready, with a good appetite, my Sibyl?’’ 
said a mellow voice outside the door, and it 
opened to admit Daddy with his third daughter 
clinging to his arm. 

He was a tall man, very slender, with fine hair 
that waved slightly back from a delicate brow. 
Luminous eyes of a colour hard to define, very 
dark and brilliant, burned under straight, fine 
eyebrows. The face was thin and pale, but with 
no suggestion of ill-health, and a fine brown 
moustache drooped over lips as sensitive as a 
woman’s. 

Stanley Inglesant was a very handsome man, 
and if his beauty lacked somewhat of manly 
vigour it was not precisely weak. There was a 
slight stoop in the shoulders, and the hands were 
long and nervous, but his voice was full and rich, 
and there was a charm in it and in the easy grace 
of his carriage and manner that explained the evi- 
dent adoration of the “daughters” for this lovable 
“Daddy.” 


12 


Daddy’s Daughters 

‘Waiting us, my dearests?” he said as he and 
Sibyl entered. “Let me help you, Rosamond.’' 
He pulled out Rosamond’s heavy chair and 
seated her with the courtly politeness he would 
have shown to a distinguished guest. “Gaynor, 
my valiant one, you do not wait to be assisted! 
Learn to lean on little courtesies, my daughter; 
it is wise to be the gracious woman who knows 
how to receive favours ! Let your daddy seat you, 
Anstiss baby ! Now it is not every man that has 
his Sweets before soup, is it?” 

Daddy took his own place opposite Rosamond 
at the head of the table, having ended his little 
ceremonial with a valedictory kiss on Anstiss’ 
chubby cheek. 

He shook out his napkin, with a smile declining 
the water that Mary Frances offered him. That 
good woman waited on the table, not with any 
suggestion of inferiority to those whom she 
served, but as more convenient. As she waited 
she frequently offered her advice and her com- 
ments on the matters discussed. 

“Now,” said Daddy, daintily sprinkling a little 
salt on the cloth beside his plate, “when you have 
been abroad, daughters, I expect tidings of the 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 13 

great world which lies down the road — more or 
less remote. You know that we agree that only a 
stupid person sees and hears nothing on a walk 
in this interesting world ! What have you to tell 
me?’^ 

“The Evans place is certainly rented, Daddy- 
dear,'' said Rosamond. “There is smoke to-day 
from its chimneys." 

“And where there is smoke there is always fire, 
and where there is a family to be fed there is 
always fire in the kitchen. It was the kitchen 
chimney that smoked to-day. Daddy-dear, so see 
how we pieced it out, like Sherlock Holmes?" 
cried Gaynor. 

“Sibyl thinks they may bother us, but I say 
we've got to go where they are to be bothered, or 
they can’t," added Anstiss. 

“True, Solomonetta! Far truer than you 
know !” approved Daddy. “We've always got to 
put ourselves in the way of bothers to be their 
victims." 

“You needn't have gone to all that taking to 
find out the Evans house is rented," interposed 
Mary Frances as she began removing the soup 
plates, preventing Anstiss from quite scraping the 


14 Daddy’s Daughters 

bottom out of hers — the little girl dreaded to lose 
one drop of her best-beloved cream of celery soup. 
“The butcher told me there was a family come 
into it last week. Their name is Borroughs. 
The father is off to the Philippines, and the 
mother has come here with all her children ” 

“Children ? Are there children ? How many ? 
How old?’’ cried Sibyl. 

“All somewhere about your age,” said Mary 
Frances, pausing in the doorway to answer. 
“You wouldn’t think there could be so many so 
near the same age, for there’s seven of ’em, three 
boys and four girls. And I guess the girls is 
twins.” 

“All four of them, Mary Frances?” suggested 
Gaynor. 

“I guess so. Gay,” Mary Frances called back as 
she disappeared. “They look it.” 

“Then she must have seen them !” cried Gaynor. 

“Isn’t it int’resting?” sighed Anstiss. 

“It may be lucky after all that we couldn’t sell 
the land on that side last year,” said Daddy. “I 
can imagine three boys and four girls, all 
more or less twins, being disturbing to a man that 
is playing at writing a novel.” 


Daddy, His Daughters, and Others 1 5 

‘Dh, how is the novel to-day, Daddy-dear?” 
cried Gaynor eagerly. “Have you written this 
morning?” 

“It is as well as can be expected, Gay-dear,” 
retorted Daddy with a whimsical twist of the 
lips. “As can be expected of my novel, of course. 
Yes, I wrote perhaps a thousand words this morn- 
ing.” 

“Oh, how lovely! That’s nearly a third of a 
chapter!” cried Gaynor, experienced in the 
measurement of literary quantities. 

“How lovely it will be when it is done and pub- 
lished !” sighed Sibyl. 

Her father frowned slightly, and there was a 
note of impatience in his voice as he said: “You 
know perfectly well that I am not writing for 
publication, Sibyl!” 


CHAPTER II 


THE RELIABLE REDDESHES 

D addy arose from the table, and waited, 
with each .arm bent into a receptive curve. 
Rosamond and Gaynor slipped a hand into these 
waiting elbows, Gaynor saying at the same time : 
'Tt’s the turn of the first half of the daughters to- 
day!” meaning that yesterday the two younger 
girls had thus been ceremonially escorted from the 
dining room. 

These two did not follow their father and sis- 
ters as they disappeared down the long hall. 
Sibyl went over to the window, listlessly swinging 
the shade cord as she looked out upon the begin- 
nings of spring revealed by the reddening maple 
buds, and the yellow light which was really the 
willow branches down by the pond. 

Anstiss capably began to remove the crackers 
and cheese, supplementing Daddy’s deficiencies by 
folding his napkin neatly, and then getting out the 

i6 


The Reliable Reddeshes 17 

old silver tray which served as a crumb tray. 
Anstiss was never so happy as when she was busy, 
and being always busy she was always happy. 
While Sibyl hated small duties, and was the only 
one of the sisters who was unoccupied and dis- 
contented. 

The second room over across the hall from the 
dining room was the library, and into it Daddy 
now led Rosamond and Gaynor. Gaynor loved 
it best of all the stately rooms in the noble house, 
and felt the instant she crossed its threshold the 
influence of the wisdom and good society stored 
in its shelves which surrounded its four sides, 
filled with books from floor to ceiling, the books of 
several generations of Inglesants. 

Daddy lay back gracefully and luxuriously in 
his dingy big leather chair beside the black oak 
writing table. On this table lay sheets of manu- 
script written in his clerkly hand. Rosamond 
glanced at them lovingly, but Gay looked at them 
with an alert curiosity that did not escape Daddy’s 
amused eyes. 

“Not even you may see The Novel, Gay,” he 
laughed, laying the sheets together carelessly. 
“Nobody will ever see those pages. I shall leave 


1 8 Daddy’s Daughters 

the book as a legacy to my daughters, with the 
injunction not to read it until I have been in my 
grave seven years and a day. But you are to 
remember that it will be in these pages, and 
not in that grave, that the real Daddy lies 
buried.’^ 

‘‘Oh, Daddy-dear, how can you speak of dy- 
ing cried Rosamond reproachfully. 

“Rose-of-the- world, I did not speak of dying; 
I spoke of being dead,” said Daddy. “But I don’t 
feel the slightest presentiment of an early doom! 
I am well, at peace with the world, indifferent to 
wealth or fame, and only forty-three — why should 
I not live for a little forever?” 

“You’d better!” said Gay emphatically. Then, 
being the most book-loving girl of the four, her 
mind travelled back to the unspoken thought 
which Daddy had anticipated. 

“But I want to read that book long before then. 
Daddy, and I want all the world to read it. I’m 
sure even I could write a great book in this room, 
among all these great people on the shelves, and 
it is you who are writing this one!” 

Gaynor’s voice conveyed her sense of the magni- 
tude of the combination of her well-beloved, 


The Reliable Reddeshes 19 

learned Daddy and the books in the libraryful of 
atmosphere. 

Daddy laughed. “But only for amusement, 
Gay ! Let it be set down to my credit that I never 
mean to inflict myself on a long-suffering world ! 
I’m not of much use to it, but at least I don’t 
trouble it.” 

“Of much use to it! When you always say 
that we make up your world, and you know how 
we just — just revel in you!” Gaynor came out 
of her hesitation for a word with a triumphant 
sense of having found the very one for the case. 

“And when we have never been to school, and 
you have taught us everything that we know here, 
in this dear, shadowy room !” added Rosamond. 

“And when you know so much !” added Daddy. 
“Not that I am not satisfied with your education, 
Daughters-mine. I like its omissions as well 
as its acquirements. I fancy you would pass with 
honours an examination in English literature.” 

“Mary Frances says that we don’t know any- 
thing that’s useful,” said Anstiss, appearing in the 
doorway. 

“When you are the most useful little girl of 
your age and plumpness that was ever seen, and 


20 


Daddy’s Daughters 


when she herself has taught you to bake and brew ! 
Now I call that most unfair in Mary Frances!” 
remonstrated Daddy. 

“She means anything that would give us any 
money,” explained Anstiss seriously. “But I 
don’t want any money, so what’s the use ?” 

“Precisely, Anstiss; that is my position! I 
don’t want any more money than I have either, so 
what’s the use of my spending my life in worse 
than folly pursuing it?” said Daddy. “Though 
Mary Frances tells me that there isn’t enough for 
all of you girls, and that I ought to make it for 
you.” 

“That’s nonsense. Daddy,” said Gaynor de- 
cidedly. “You know we don’t care at all for 
going out, and parties, and all that, and when 
girls stay at home — and make their own candies,” 
— Gay laughed at her own nonsense, — “why, 
what do they want of money ? I wish you would 
smoke cigars. Daddy-dear,” she added, breaking 
off suddenly as she watched her father delicately 
fill and light his little briarwood pipe. 

“So do I,” said Rosamond. “A cigar would 
match you better, somehow.” 

“Because it is more elegant, or because it is long 


The Reliable Reddeshes 21 

and slender?” queried Daddy. “But you see, my 
girls, there is one of the penalties of a small in- 
come. Cigars are much more expensive than my 
little brown friend here — though I honestly like 
this better. You ought not to scorn it, Rosa- 
mond: Rose-of-the-world ought to like wood-of- 
the-briar.” 

“It sounds pretty that way,” said Anstiss. “I 
came to ask you to come out to the meal room, 
girls; Mary Frances wants you.” 

“Then we must go,” said Gay, rising reluc- 
tantly. “It’s a Duty; when Mary Frances calls it 
is always the voice of Duty, for she never sends 
for us except there’s something must be done.” 

This time, however, there was nothing to be 
done, but something to be consulted upon, as 
Rosamond and Gaynor saw at a glance when they 
arrived in the big, sweet middle room, between 
the kitchen and the successive rooms which 
rambled on out at the end of the old house till 
checked by the piazza at the back and the box- 
bordered paths of the old garden. 

“The meal room” was the storeroom of the 
house, not for preserves — they stood in phalanxes 
on the cellar shelves — but for flour and sugar, and 


22 


Daddy’s Daughters 

the spices that suggested the vanished days when 
Inglesants had fitted out merchant ships for the 
China trade — they had never gone to sea them- 
selves, being of other sort than bold sea-lovers. 

As Rosamond and Gaynor entered this room of 
pleasant suggestions they saw at a glance that 
something serious portended. Mary Frances 
stood backed against a barrel, clasping its edge 
with her hands behind her. Her keen, thin face, 
with its frame of scanty light brown hair drawn 
back and knotted in a manner distinctly announc- 
ing that its owner’s one desire was to keep it out 
of the way, was gravely anxious. Amos 
Reddesh’s tall figure was draped — so to speak — 
in the doorway opposite to his wife. His left 
foot was poised on the toe of his high boot, cross- 
ing the right one at the ankle, and his left hand 
held the lintel of the door, for Amos was fully six 
feet tall. His head rested on the raised left arm, 
and his long face wore a most serious expression. 

“What is up, dear Reddeshes?” asked Gay. 
“You look as though everything were down.” 

A gleam that might have developed into a smile 
under happier conditions flitted over Amos’ face, 
but Mary Frances answered crisply : 


The Reliable Reddeshes 


23 


“We never speak to you children about things 
unless we must; you know that. But though we 
can manage the little we have without referring 
to the family, when it comes to gettin’ what we 
haven’t we’d rather you’d take a hand in it. And 
you know your father would only laugh and tell us 
to feed him on spiced peaches.” 

“Feed Daddy?” asked Rosamond, puzzled. 

“No; feed Gustavus Adolphus,” said Mary 
Frances. “He hasn’t any more feed, nor any 
more oats, and there isn’t any money to buy any 
till May, and he can’t live on nothin’ but hay.” 

“I couldn’t,” assented Gay soberly. “Well, 
why don’t you get some, Mary Frances ? Oats or 
something ? Or couldn’t you make him gruel ? — 
there seems to be flour here.” 

“If you ain’t your father’s daughter!” ex- 
claimed Mary Frances impatiently. “You’d talk 
nonsense if the sky fell, and then you say: ‘Why 
don’t you stop it?’ Now didn’t I just say the 
money’s used up for this month, and there won’t 
be any more till May? You know your father 
hands me over his income each month, and I put it 
in piles — so much in the little Chinese teapot for 
food ; so much in the blue bowl for fuel and light ; 


24 


Daddy's Daughters 

so much in the rose jar, that’s got the broken 
cover, for Gustavus Adolphus’ feed and oats, and 
bed straw, and so much in the old pink sugar bowl 
for your clothes, and so much in the gravy boat, 
that’s lost its handle, for taxes, and repairs, or 
whatever the place has to have.” 

'‘I know you do, Mary Frances,” said Gay 
cordially. ‘‘And I know each of those ‘so muches’ 
is really ‘so little’ — so little in the rose jar, and the 
sugar bowl, and so on. It seems sometimes as 
though you must keep all those piles together in 
a sieve ! It always has struck me, Mary Frances,” 
Gay continued, perching herself on the edge of the 
table in an easy, argumentative attitude that be- 
trayed her entire oblivion to the point actually at 
issue, “it has always struck me that it must be a 
great strain on your mind to remember which 
dish holds the money for what. What would 
happen if you gave Gustavus Adolphus the taxes, 
for instance, instead of the oats, or dressed us 
from the blue bowl that holds coal and light? 
Wouldn’t it be easier if you kept the whole of our 
wealth together, and just bought what you had 
to? Because if you had to, you’d have to, and 
there it is !” 


The Reliable Reddeshes 


25 

“When you’re old enough, or if ever you get 
over being an out-and-out Inglesant and thinkin’ 
you’re a lily-of-the-field that doesn’t have to con- 
sider, — for you’re old enough now to know some- 
thing sensible, — you’ll find out, Gaynor, that all 
‘have tos’ ain’t equally bindin’. Honest people 
don’t get what they can’t pay for, even if they do 
have to have it! And when I see one of my 
utensils gettin’ low inside I don’t buy any more 
of what its money was meant for — not till next 
month! And I’m goin’ to keep my accounts in 
my own way. But the thing we’ve got to con- 
sider now is that the rose jar’s clean empty, and 
Gustavus Adolphus ’s got to eat. Where are we 
goin’ to get it ?” Mary Frances ended her breath- 
less speech with a triumphant poser, half enjoying 
her conviction that there was no answer to her 
question. 

“How did he happen to run short this month, 
Mary Frances?” asked Rosamond. 

“He miscalculated. He don’t often make mis- 
takes, but when he does it’s a big one,” said Mary 
Frances, turning upon the discomfited Amos, 
whom she indicated by this wifely “he.” “He 
didn’t reckon right, and he ordered too little, and 


26 


Daddy’s Daughters 


spent the rest of the money in the rose jar for a 
fly-net and new halter. I guess if the poor horse 
don’t have any oats for three weeks the flies won’t 
bother him! But I will say, in justice to Amos, 
that something got at the feed we had, and a lot’s 
run down a crack through a hole in the bag, where 
we can’t get at it to scrape it up. We’d have had 
more if it hadn’t have been for that.” 

“Rats?” suggested Gay. 

“Yes, or mice — or both,” said Mary Frances. 

“Cats?” suggested Gay again. 

“Yes, we’ve got to get some cats — two or three 
good ones. But in the meantime ” 

“You can’t feed cats to Gustavus Adolphus? 
That’s true, Mary Frances; the horse wouldn’t 
like it, and you and I and the other Inglesant girls 
would hate it, because we love little pussies so 
dearly!” Gay interrupted Mary Frances. 

“Gay, do be sensible!” protested Rosamond. 
“Really, what are we to do? Of course there 
can’t be money in the other bowls and things, 
Mary Frances, or you’d have thought of borrow- 
ing from them?” 

“Only enough in the little Chinese teapot to 
carry us through; it wouldn’t do any good to buy 


The Reliable Reddeshes 27 

oats for Gustavus Adolphus and not have any 
food for ourselves, ’’ said Mary Frances. ^‘Every- 
thing else is empty except the gravy boat, and 
that’s got thirteen cents in it left from the new 
shingles where the roof leaked.” 

Rosamond shook her head, and Gaynor swung 
her feet meditatively, really turning over the 
problem in earnest at last. 

“Miss Wrenn has plenty oats,” said Amos, 
speaking for the first time. He was a man of few 
words and spoke slowly. 

“Borrow from her, and return them when the 
next instalment comes in?” asked Gay hopefully. 

“Don’t you see. Gay, the trouble is we’ll need 
Gustavus Adolphus’ next allowance to keep him 
through till the one after that? We won’t have 
anything to spare to return what we borrow. 
When you’re just gettin’ through you can’t afford 
to make mistakes.” Mary Frances spoke snap- 
pishly, and looked witheringly at long Amos, who 
seemed to shrink under her reproach. 

“Oh, well, everybody makes mistakes, and 
Amos makes so very few !” said Rosamond. “Fm 
sure he has thought of some way out, or he 
wouldn’t have suggested Miss Wrenn. For we 


28 Daddy^s Daughters 

couldn’t beg oats, you know, Amos, not even for 
dear old Gustavus Adolphus!” 

“I guess you no need to, and I guess I wouldn’t 
have you! You’d look well, an Inglesant, beg- 
ging horse-feed!” said Amos, warmed to some- 
thing like excitement. “No, but she’s got a lot 
of oats — too much for her pony — ^and she hasn’t 
any rye. Now our rye is fine, the biggest kinder 
crop up in the south fields. I thought mebbe she’d 
let you have some oats now, and you’d give her 
rye for them when it’s cut. Kinder ” 

“Swap !” cried Gaynor triumphantly as she slid 
from her perch. “Of course she will, and be glad 
to. What should we do without the Wrenn 
house? We’ll go down there and ask her to 
trade her oats for our rye, and save dear old 
Gustavus Adolphus’ life ! Come on, Rosamond ! 
We’ll go; only too glad of an excuse to go! 
Don’t you see why I can’t be cast down when we 
are trembling on the verge of something or other, 
Mary Frances? We always come out on top! 
We’re just like a proper story book. It gets a 
little exciting in spots, but you know it’s coming 
out all right, because it is a story book. And you 
know we’re coming out all right, because we are 


The Reliable Reddeshes 29 

we, and we always do. We five Inglesants are 
corks — it would be slang to say we were corkers, 
but it’s proper to say we are corks, Mary Frances ! 
True too — we always float. We’re Ivory soap! 
Get right down under the water, and then up we 
slip ! I knew Gustavus Adolphus would be oated 
somehow! Come on, Rosamond, and see our 
dear Jenny Wrenn ! I wonder how often she has 
rescued us? Gaynor skipped singing out of the 
meal room, followed by Rosamond with a smile 
over her shoulder for the two Reddeshes who gave 
them a devoted care no money could buy or repay. 

As the door swung behind the girls Gay’s fresh 
young voice rang out singing : 

“ Robin rose up early, 

Before the break of day; 

He flew to Jenny Wren’s house 
To sing a roundelay.” 

‘Tsn’t she the beatenest ?” ejaculated Amos ad- 
miringly as he slowly reversed his crossed feet, 
stood straight upon them, detached himself from 
the lintel of the door, and sauntered out toward 
the garden. 


CHAPTER III 


A WREN, A KITTEN, AND A HORSE 

W E might go up toward the Evans place, 
and across,” suggested Gay. 

The Inglesant girls had been wandering up in 
the direction of their new neighbours ever since 
they had heard that such neighbours were theirs, 
but thus far had not succeeded in catching a 
glimpse of them. Rosamond agreed to Gaynor’s 
proposition now, but with the same result; the 
Burroughs were nowhere visible. 

‘‘They must spell it B-u-r-r-o-w-s,” suggested 
Gay. ‘T don’t see how they can live above 
ground and never be seen; seven of them !” 

“And a mother,” added Rosamond. “They’ll 
come up to breathe, if no more, some day. Gay, 
and we shall surely see them. I wonder if Miss 
Wrenn is at home?” 

“It looks showery, so she is sure to be,” said 
Gay, winding her arm around her sister as they 
30 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 31 

came out of the path leading into Inglesant 
Place at the rear, and on to the road, which al- 
lowed them to walk abreast. “I wonder what it 
feels like to be so little, and elderly, and all alone, 
like Miss Winnie? When you and I are old, 
Rosamond, we shall have each other.'^ 

“And not Sibyl and Anstiss?’’ suggested Rosa- 
mond with a smile. But she tightened her hold 
on Gay’s waist as she spoke. These two girls 
had long ago decided that nothing should ever 
part them. 

“Oh, Anstiss! Anstiss will be keeping house 
in a college settlement, or something! I’m sure 
she’s like a whole settlement in her small self 
now,” laughed Gaynor. Neither took up the 
question of Sibyl’s lot; they were fond of Sibyl, 
of course, but she was too fond of herself to make 
it necessary or likely that any one else should love 
her quite as a more unselfish person is loved. 

“It does seem dreadful to be alone, like Miss 
Winnie,” said Rosamond. 

“It seems dreadful to be alone, but not to be 
alone like Miss Winnie,” said Gaynor, making a 
clever and far-seeing distinction. “She is so 
bright and cheerful, and so busy, and so full of 


32 Daddy’s Daughters 

other people’s happenings that she doesn’t seem 
alone — not even on a rainy day when her servants 
are out !” Gaynor laughed a little. '‘See, what a 
dear little house it is, Rosamond! If we were 
two old ladies wouldn’t you like to have one just 
like the Wren Nest?” 

“I’d rather live and die on Inglesant Place,” 
said Rosamond. “But it is sweet.” 

Miss Winifred Wrenn’s house was even pret- 
tier than the girls were fully able to perceive. 
It stood among towering trees, a charming 
little house of harmonious lines, perfectly fitted to 
its surroundings. It had a character all its own, 
as indeed it could hardly escape having with such 
an individual little lady to claim it. Miss Winnie 
was a tiny person, all blithe chatter and quick 
ways, full of spirit, but so kindly that she carried 
on her slender shoulders the cares of half the 
neighbourhood. Her name was so appropriate 
that one wondered if she really could have been 
born to it, or whether it had not been fitted to her, 
Dickens fashion, after she had proved her right to 
it. “If only she could have been named Jenny!” 
sighed the Inglesants again and again. But a 
Wrenn she was in name, and most wren-like in 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 33 

her courage, her quickness, her cheerfulness, and 
her light, sweet, far-reaching voice. 

The motherless Inglesant children had found 
in this tiny lady and her home much to supplement 
their lack; they owed Miss Winnie more than they 
would realise until years later. She supplied to 
them the woman’s standards, the fine gentle- 
woman’s standards, that good Mary Frances was 
not equipped for giving. Many were the dilem- 
mas through which Miss Wrenn had guided them, 
and keen was her secret amusement over the In- 
glesant way of taking life and scrambling irre- 
sponsibly through it. 

“Well, my dears!” she chirped, as Rosamond 
and Gaynor found their way to her where she 
was busily removing the straw from her hardy 
climbing roses. “What can I do for you to-day, 
as I heard my namesake Jenny Wren saying to a 
bluebird whose house she wanted to confiscate 
down in my garden an hour since ! Such a hypo- 
crite of a bird, pretending to be so pleasant while 
the bluebird was within, but let her once 
come forth and the little brown buccaneer was 
prepared to give her points on the law of pos- 
session I” 


34 


Daddy^s Daughters 

“But you are outside, Miss Winnie, and so are 
we,” Rosamond suggested. 

“And my story does not fit, you mean ? 
Neither does it, but it is a nice story none the 
less!” said Miss Wrenn. “But I’m sure that you 
came on an errand; out with it! Has Stanley 
decided to take you all to Europe in his beautiful 
old family sideboard? It would be just like 
him !” 

Gaynor laughed, but Rosamond flushed as she 
smiled faintly; she did not enjoy even Miss Win- 
nie's affectionate fun-poking at her adored Daddy. 

“We came, Miss Winnie, to ” she began, 

but Gay cut her short. 

“Wait, Rosamond!” she cried. “I’ve thought 
of a lovely word for it! We have come. Miss 
Winnie, to barter, to barter, if you please.” 

“Gay, you absurd child! What have you to 
barter with a Wrenn?” said Miss Winnie. 

“Amos, Miss Winnie, miscalculated Gustavus 
Adolphus’ allowance or appetite, or something, 
this month, and the rats made a hole in the bag 
that held what feed he had for our beloved hero, 
and so he fell short,” Gaynor explained. “Mary 
Frances keeps Daddy’s income for each month in 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 35 

little piles in different articles in the kitchen 
closet; — Gustavus Adolphus’ pile is in the rose 
jar, and it’s completely empty, while — so is, or so 
will be Gusadolph, because he has no more oats.” 
Gaynor’s explanation broke off in a laugh in which 
Miss Wrenn joined. 

‘‘Oh, Gay !” remonstrated Rosamond. She 
never could fully share Gay’s humourous point of 
view of their family management, nor quite enjoy 
making fun of it, even to Miss Winnie. 

“Now, Rose-of-the-yvorld, Miss Winnie knows 
Mary Frances, and she knows Gustavus Adolphus, 
and she knows Daddy-dear’s few pennies, so why 
not?” Gay said. “You see. Miss Winnie, when 
the rose jar gets its next share of those pennies 
they will be for the next month’s oats, so we don’t 
want to buy any. Amos thought maybe you 
would let us have some oats, and take for them 
our rye when it’s cut; would you?” 

“Gladly!” said Miss Wrenn briskly. “I have 
no rye, and I have too many oats. Eldorado shall 
bring you as many as you need.” 

“Oh dear, no!” said Rosamond. “Amos will 
come after them. But who did you say would 
bring them. Miss Winnie?” 


36 Daddy’s Daughters 

‘'Eldorado. He’s my new man. He was 
named by hopeful parents who moved West be- 
fore he was born, and who thought they had found 
the golden land. With the result that they came 
back with only Eldorado’s name to show for it, 
the poorest people you can imagine, and have re- 
mained poor ever since. Come into the house, 
dear children: I am lemonade-thirsty.” Miss 
Wrenn arose as she spoke, dusted her knees of 
straw, dusted her big gloves together, and led the 
way toward her house. 

“We must not stop, really, Miss Winnie,” said 
Rosamond. She did not mean to be different 
away from home than in it, but her manner always 
grew three years older when she was calling. 

Miss Wrenn gave her a funny little look over 
her shoulder, so like a bird that both girls laughed. 
She wasted no words in remonstrance, but dis- 
appeared into the pantry to give her order through 
the sliding door that opened into the kitchen. 

The cheerful living-room in which they found 
themselves was always a delight to the Inglesants ; 
books and pictures seemed its chief furniture, so 
evidently had they been the one thought in its 
mistress’ mind in furnishing; chairs and tables 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 37 

were entirely subservient to them, a necessity, yet 
an after-thought. 

An immense coloured woman, whose name was 
Fairy, brought in a tray full of delicate Italian 
glasses, and a crystal pitcher filled with lemonade, 
in which floated the first strawberries which Rosa- 
mond and Gaynor had seen that year. 

‘‘To Gustavus Adolphus, in whose cause you 
came here, like faithful followers,” said Miss 
Wrenn, filling the glasses, and raising her 
own. 

Rosamond and Gay drank the toast with be- 
coming gravity. 

'‘But we truly must not stay this afternoon, 
dear Miss Winnie; it’s getting late,” said Rosa- 
mond. 

“Then come again soon,” said Miss Wrenn, 
with a light touch on pretty Rosamond’s shoulder 
that was a caress. “And take with you this book 
on Italian gardens. I have been saving it for you. 
Read the places I have marked — they describe 
gardens where this little Wrenn loved to flutter in 
her old Italian days.” 

The little Wrenn’s voice took on a note that was 
half plaintive, as if she recalled longingly that 


38 Daddy’s Daughters 

early flight with a dear mother who had lingered 
long in Italy in vain pursuit of failing health. 

“Good-bye, dear Miss Winnie,” said the girls, 
kissing their little hostess lovingly as their quick 
ears caught the tone, and their warm hearts, un- 
derstanding its cause, responded to its wistful- 
ness. 

“We’ve exchanged rye for oats, Amos !” called 
Gay as she caught sight of Amos on the way to 
visit Gustavus Adolphus. 

“ Dats, peas, beans, and barley grow,’ ” sang 
Anstiss, coming to meet them. Sibyl too came 
across the broad lawn. 

“I’ve been up to the very hedge of the Evans 
place,” she announced, “and I haven’t seen a 
glimpse of the new people. I don’t believe there 
are any new people !” 

“That sounds like Betsy Prig defying Sairy 
about Mrs. Harris,” cried Gay. “You don’t be- 
lieve there ain’t no such a person, neither, do 
you ?” 

“Mercy, Gay!” remonstrated literal Anstiss, 
who did not know her Dickens very well. 
“Such a lot of nots and noes and neithers ! Who 
was it talked like that?” 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 39 

“What’s that?” cried Rosamond sharply as 
something shot up and across the lawn. 

“It’s Trouble!” cried Sibyl. “And what in all 
this world has he found ?” 

It was Trouble, head up, and tearing along at 
as great a pace as his short legs allowed, doing 
his utmost to keep something that he was carrying 
from dragging on the ground, while at the same 
time the something seemed to squirm in a manner 
that contradicted Gaynor’s impression that the 
little dog had found the rubber overshoe which 
she had lost lately down by the pond. 

“Forever!” exclaimed a voice behind them, 
Mary Frances’ voice. “If Trouble ain’t fetchin’ 
us a black kitten !” 

He certainly was fetching them a black kitten. 
He laid it at the eight feet of his young mis- 
tresses, and wagged his tail hard, beginning the 
wag half-way up his body. 

“Oh, has he hurt it?” cried Rosamond as Gay 
gathered the limp little creature into her amis, and 
Trouble, catching the note of disapproval in her 
voice, wilted in proportion to his first pride, and 
waited anxiously, with deprecating wags of his 
tail, the final verdict. 


40 


Daddy’s Daughters 

‘‘Not a bit!” declared Gay, having hastily felt 
of the kitten's general anatomy. “And isn't it 
pretty? Oh, Rosamond, Sibyl, Anstiss, isn't it 
the darlingest thing!'' 

For the kitten turned to her, stretched up its 
small jet paw, and thrust out the tip of a becom- 
ingly contrasting red tongue to lick the cheek of 
her whom he at once recognised as a lover of his 
kind. 

“It's perfectly exquisite!” cried Anstiss in a 
rapture, while Trouble ventured to brighten up a 
little under the improved tone of the remarks. 

“Well, talk about intelligent dogs!” began 
Mary Frances, who was a loyal admirer of 
Trouble. “Do you suppose Trouble didn't hear 
Amos and me sayin' there'd have to be a cat in 
the barn if we wanted to keep anything for Gusta- 
vus Adolphus to eat ? And he v/ent and got one ! 
Such a dog !” 

“Why, so he did!” cried Sibyl, convinced at 
once that this was not a coincidence. “Why, you 
good, dear, good little Trouble you!” 

“Whether he understood or not we're much 
obliged for the kitten!” added Rosamond. 
“Good Trouble! Fine little doglums!” 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 41 

Gaynor and Anstiss joined in the tribute of 
praise, and Trouble saw that ingratitude was not 
to be his portion. He whined and jumped about, 
and sat up waving his paws — his one accomplish- 
ment — a perfect snarl of shapeless woolly bliss. 

“What shall we call it?” asked Sibyl, contriv- 
ing to get one hand among the others stroking the 
new arrival. 

“We ought to call it Borrow; it borrows 
Trouble, don’t you see ? Oh, no, it doesn’t either; 
Trouble borrowed the kitten — and we won’t re- 
turn it,” said Gay. “That wouldn’t do.” 

“‘Well, you can all call it what you please, but 
it’s just my darling little black Pickaninny, and 
that ’ll be my name for him,” declared Anstiss, 
getting the kitten away from Gay into her own 
arms. 

“That’s as good a name as he could have,” said 
Gay decidedly; “and I’ll tell you something, Mrs. 
Mary Frances Reddesh, my dear: You and Amos 
will have to set Trouble again to trap a kitten, for 
this beautiful black cherub can’t stay in the barn !” 

“No; we’re going to take turns cuddling this 
one in the house all the rest of our days,” laughed 
Rosamond. But she more than half meant it. 


42 


Daddy’s Daughters 

^‘Oh, there comes Daddy with Gustavus Adol- 
phus in the buggy, and he didn’t take me !” cried 
Sibyl, running down to meet her father. 

“Gustavus Adolphus, wait !” ordered Gay, rush- 
ing after Sibyl. 

The horse, who had been in the Inglesant 
family longer than Gaynor herself, knew his name, 
understood the order, and obeyed it. Mr. Ingle- 
sant leaned out of the shabby buggy and threat- 
ened his second daughter with his whip. 

“How dare you hold me up, Dick Turpinette?” 
he demanded. 

“And how dare you go off without one daugh- 
ter to look after you?” retorted Gay. She helped 
Anstiss and Pickaninny into the buggy, Sibyl fol- 
lowed, and Trouble sat up waving his paws 
frantically, begging to be taken in too, although 
the barn was distant but two hundred feet, and the 
little dog knew perfectly that they were going no 
further. 

Gay compassionately assisted him up, his hind 
legs kicking wildly, and his fore paws striving to 
grasp the step. Daddy caught these, and Trouble 
was safely bundled in “somewhere among their 
feet,” as Daddy explained. 


A Wren, a Kitten, and a Horse 43 

Gay jumped up lightly on Gustavus Adolphus’ 
back, and in spite of her dignity and sixteen years, 
Rosamond followed. The old horse looked 
around, took account of stock, saw that no In- 
glesant was lacking, and of his own accord re- 
sumed his leisurely way. Thus as long as they 
could remember had the four little girls driven to 
the barn when they met their Daddy returning. 

“We really have very good times,” said Anstiss, 
hugging Pickaninny, whose purrs were out of all 
proportion to his size. 

“Who said we didn’t?” inquired Sibyl. 

“I mean in spite of Mary Frances’ bowls and 
things getting empty,” explained Anstiss. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE BURROUGHS FROM THEIR 
BURROWS 

“T^TOW this afternoon we will go up to the 
Evans place and just stay and stay 
there until we do see those people!” announced 
Sibyl. 

“Very well; I don’t mind. The violets ought 
to be out along that hedge, anyway,” said Gay- 
nor. “But as to seeing the Burroughs, suppose 
they stay on the other side of their place the whole 
afternoon — even if they aren’t in burrows, as they 
really must be ?” 

“Then we’ll come home again — like the king of 
France and his men,” said Rosamond. 

The four girls, with Trouble in attendance, and 
Pickaninny in Anstiss’ arms, went slowly up their 
own fields to the boundaries of their neighbours’ 
grounds. 

Not a living thing was in sight, but the violets 


44 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 45 

were already blue in the sheltered sunny spots 
along the hedge-line. 

Rosamond had brought a shawl. “1 thought 
if we were to stay here until those people showed 
themselves we’d have to sit down,” she explained, 
spreading the thick tartan on the young grass and 
joining the other :hree, who tumbled on its soft- 
ness with a sigh oi relief. 

“Maybe they have pockets full of fern seed, so 
we can’t see them,” said Sibyl, who had not out- 
grown her love for fairy tales. 

“There isn’t any fern seed now,” said Anstiss, 
who was not sure that fern seed might not make 
one invisible, but who objected to every-day im- 
possibilities. 

“I can’t think how seven children, all about as 
big as we are, can keep out of sight so long,” 
grumbled Gay. “They must be quiet !” 

“Not always,” said a voice from somewhere. 

“What’s that !” cried nervous Sibyl, starting to 
her feet as if she were about to run. 

“Some one spoke!” explained Rosamond un- 
necessarily. 

“It must be a Burroughs,” said placid Anstiss. 
“I wish we could see one!” 


46 


Daddy’s Daughters 

“Then why don’t you look up?” inquired the 
voice. 

The Inglesant girls followed the suggestion, 
and there, far above their heads, sitting astride 
of a branch of the great elm a few feet away was 
a boy of thirteen, whose face was so alive with 
mischief that one could not tell what he looked 
like. 

“My goodness!” ejaculated Gay, the others 
being quite dumb-stricken by this unexpected ap- 
parition. 

“Would you like to see a Burroughs nearer 
by ?” asked the boy, preparing to descend. 

“We didn’t know you were there,” said Sibyl, 
mortified at being caught indulging her curiosity 
as to the new neighbours. 

“How strange I” said the boy, detaching the leg 
of his trousers from a branch that had caught and 
torn it badly on his way down, which he resumed 
without emotion over his mishap. “Now I should 
have thought you’d have been looking for me up 
there! How are you? Inglesants, I guess you 
are, because I know they’ve got four girls over 
there.” 

“Yes, we’re Inglesants,” said Rosamond, trying 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 47 

to act as if the meeting were not so very unusual. 
“We were interested in our new neighbours, and 
wishing that we might see them.” 

“Right you are,” approved the boy. “We were 
wishing we might see you, so we turned you into 
a game. We play every afternoon that we are an 
army, and you are the enemy, and we go up into 
places — like that, for instance,” — he pointed to 
the tree from which he had just come, — “to spy 
into the enemy’s country. That isn’t because we 
feel unkindly, but it is more interesting to consider 
you the enemy.” His funny face shut up in a 
wrinkle of fun as he spoke. 

“Oh, we understand !” said Sibyl politely, while 
Gaynor laughed aloud. 

“Where are the rest of you? There are seven, 
we heard,” she said. 

“Yes,” said the boy. “ ‘We are seven,’ you 
know. Wordsworth didn’t write that poem on us 
though, because there isn’t one of us in the church- 
yard — we’re all as alive as we can be, and we don’t 
eat our suppers out of little porringers — we’re a 
hungry lot. And we never hem our own ker- 
chiefs; even the girls hate sewing. But still we 


are seven. 


48 Daddy’s Daughters 

“Where are the others ?’" repeated Gay, de- 
lighted with her new acquaintance. 

“Wouldst see the gang, fair lady?” asked the 
boy. 

“We wouldst, indeed,” returned Gay. “We’ve 
been trying to see them every day.” 

The boy whistled, and from out of all sorts of 
places on both sides of the hedge came figures, 
one very tall boy, another not so tall, but big and 
strong, two girls precisely alike, about Rosa- 
mond’s height, but far more athletic looking, and 
two other girls, not in the least alike, but the same 
height, which was equal to Gay’s, though they did 
not look older than Anstiss. 

“They were in ambush, lurking,” explained the 
first boy. “Stand in line. Burroughs all; I’m 
going to introduce you !” 

The new arrivals lined up obediently, and the 
boy already on the scene picked up a stick. 

“This,” he said, pointing to the very tall boy at 
the head of the line, as if he were a showman — 
“this, ladies, is our eldest; he is seventeen years 
old, and is called Paul Revere. No, he isn’t, 
come to think of it. He is named Paul Revere, 
but we call him Revere, because we ought to re- 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 49 

vere our eldest. Often, though, we call him Vere, 
because he changes a lot. The next boy,” he con- 
tinued, touching the broad chest of the next in 
order, “is John Hancock. He’s between fifteen 
and sixteen, nearer fifteen, and his strong point is 
muscle. We call him Cocky, because little 
Johnny doesn’t seem to suit him, and you can bet 
anything you like that Cocky does! Next are 
our twin sisters of fourteen, Tryphena and Try- 
phosa; we call them our Try-als, because no one 
on earth can tell them apart, not even themselves. 
The only gain there is in having two of them, 
instead of one, is that they can make twice as 
much noise. They are the same as one girl in 
every other way.” 

The twins grinned helplessly under this ex- 
planation, but they didn’t seem to mind it. Evi- 
dently their family life had taken all self-con- 
sciousness out of them. They were not in the 
least shy, and looked at the dainty, pretty Ingle- 
sant girls with an admiring friendliness that im- 
plied no remembrance of their own plain, jolly 
faces. 

“Next,” said the master of ceremonies, touch- 
ing his own breast, “next I come in : Nathan Hale, 


50 Daddy’s Daughters 

if you please, aged thirteen, the flower of the 
family, the joy of his mother, the pride of his 
absent father.” 

^'Absent-minded, if he were proud of you!” 
grumbled the oldest boy in pretended disgust. 

"Lastly I come to our second pair of twins, 
Drusilla and Priscilla, aged eleven. They are less 
inconvenient than the first pair ; you can tell them 
apart easy enough, for they don’t come together 
anywhere — there isn’t a thing alike, not in either 
of them! We call them our pair of Sillies, don’t 
you see? Mother calls them Pris and Silla. 
Mother isn’t here; she’s in the house, but she’s 
another of our sort — jolly, never worries, and 
doesn’t care what we do, nor how much mischief 
we get into as long as there’s no harm in it. Just 
the sort of mother for the Burroughs ! That’s all 
at present.” The boy ended his introduction with 
a low bow, and the line of Burroughs broke up 
laughing. 

"Well, this is Rosamond, our eldest,” said Gay- 
nor, discharging her obligations promptly. "She 
is sixteen, and the very dearest thing in all the 
world. Pm Gaynor, and Pm fourteen. Sibyl 
here is thirteen, and Anstiss is eleven. Trouble, 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 5 1 

come here! This is the best dog in the world; 
this is Pickaninny, our new kitten. Gustavus 
Adolphus, our horse, is at home ” 

“Like mother,’’ murmured Revere. 

“And so are Amos and Mary Frances Reddesh, 
who look after us in every way. And so is our 
beloved Daddy, the handsomest, cleverest, dearest 
Daddy four girls ever had. And that’s all you 
need to be told about us; the rest you can find 
out.” 

“You’ve found some pretty nice names for 
yourselves,” said one of the older twins en- 
viously. 

“Why, we didn’t find them,” said Anstiss. 
“They were given us when we were babies.” 

“Gaynor and Anstiss are family names; Daddy 
chose Rosamond’s name and mine because he liked 
to say them,” explained Sibyl with her lofty little 
air. 

“You have such interesting names!” interposed 
Gay hastily. “Where did you get yours?” 

“They’re rather too interesting,” said John 
Hancock, the second boy. “You see Grandfather 
Burroughs had the naming of the boys, and he 
was a tremendous patriot, so he called us after 


52 Daddy’s Daughters 

Revolutionary heroes — you may have noticed 
that ! And Grandmother Hart, my mother’s 
mother, had the naming of the girls, and she 
named them out of the New Testament. I sup- 
pose she had to hunt up names that swung to- 
gether, because both her cases were twins. But 
that’s how we got the queerest lot of names I 
know of.” 

‘Tt makes us so mad!” declared Tryphena and 
Tryphosa, speaking together. 

“It’s too bad !” said Anstiss in well-meant sym- 
pathy which defeated Rosamond and Gay’s inten- 
tion to say something polite about the Burroughs’ 
names. 

“Come on over!” said Drusilla, catching An- 
stiss’ arm in an insistent grasp. 

“Bring your kitten!” added Priscilla. 

“And your dog,” added Nathan Hale. 

“Come and see mother,” added Revere. 
“She’s the nicest of the lot; you wouldn’t think we 
could be improved upon, but mother manages it. 
Cocky, give Gaynor Inglesant your hand; she’s 
wound her feet up in her skirts somehow.” 

“I don’t want your hand, thank you,” said Gay, 
freeing herself from her entanglement. “You 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 53 

may keep it. We’ll go with pleasure, won’t we, - 
Rosamond ?” 

“Of course we will,” assented Rosamond, fold- 
ing up her shawl. But Tryphena and Tryphosa 
remonstrated. “Oh, leave it here!” they said. 
“Nobody will touch it. We never pick up any- 
thing.” 

“Mercy me! How do you keep your house 
neat?” asked orderly little Anstiss, rather shocked. 

“The maids do that,” said Priscilla. “Don’t 
your maids do it for you?” 

“We don’t have maids,” said Anstiss, flushing 
slightly. 

Sibyl looked annoyed, but Rosamond laughed. 
“We are four maids, but Mary Frances is a Tower 
of Strength; she’s not a servant,” she said. 

Tryphena and Tryphosa looked puzzled, and 
Gay added : “You see, our beloved Daddy is not in 
the least rich, rather poor in fact, but he doesn’t 
know or care anything about money and neither 
do we, so it doesn’t matter at all. We just scram- 
ble through, and have good times all the way.” 

“That’s like us, only turned about,” said Revere 
admiringly. “We have a good deal of money 
lying about in the family, but it doesn’t bother us. 


54 Daddy’s Daughters 

We hate fine clothes and fuss, and we believe in 
jolly good times three hundred and sixty-five days 
in the year — even including Sundays for some sort 
of good time. We live as free as woodchucks, 
and mother and father believe no true philosopher 
lets money get the upper hand of him, whether 
he has too much or too little. Now you wouldn’t 
have known we were philosophers if I hadn’t be- 
trayed it, would you?” he added, breaking off sud- 
denly as if he dreaded seeming in earnest. 

‘‘Goodness knows what you might turn out to 
be, you are such a queer lot !” said Gaynor frankly, 
but her tone showed that her meaning was com- 
plimentary. 

“Hale, unsnarl that woolly dog from the 
hedge,” ordered Cocky as Trouble yelped; a 
branch had caught him as he tried to follow his 
family across the boundary between the two 
places. 

Nathan Hale did as he was bidden, and Trouble 
rewarded him with a hasty lick on the nearest 
knuckle. 

Priscilla, who seemed to be more like a quiet 
child than any other of the turbulent lot of Bur- 
roughs, borrowed Pickaninny for a while, and the 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 55 

party of thirteen went up to the front of the Evans 
place, where the Inglesants were startled on arriv- 
ing by a fearful whoop in harmony from their 
escort. They distinguished an alto and soprano, 
Cocky’s bass and Revere’s tenor, and the effect 
was rather good when one got used to it, but the 
volume of sound close at hand, coming unex- 
pectedly, was trying to Sibyl’s nerves. 

In response to this concerted whoop, on its 
second repetition, a plump lady bustled out of the 
house, smiling and ready for whatever turned up. 
She was round and rosy, and dimpled; her hair, 
which was reddish, was a frowsily sort of curly 
hair, that looked all the time as if it had been out 
in a wind. Her dress, though perfectly neat, was 
careless and comfortable; evidently her appear- 
ance was the last thing that occurred to her, 
though she was rather pretty, and looked far too 
young to be Vere and Cocky’s mother — she could 
not have been more than a year or so above twice 
Vere’s age, and she was not nearly as big as either 
of her great boys. 

“These are the Inglesant girls, mother,” said 
Vere. But Nathan Hale cut him short. 

“Rosamond, Gaynor, Sibyl, and Anstiss, 


56 Daddy’s Daughters 

mother,” he said. ''We caught them spying on 
us — in a nice, ladylike manner, sitting on a plaid 
shawl. We’re getting acquainted.” 

"That’s right, Nat. Very glad to see you, my 
dears. Hope you will be neighbourly with my 
lonely little children,” said Mrs. Burroughs, with 
a twinkle exactly like Nathan Hale’s. "Maybe 
you can teach Cocky some of your nice, ladylike 
little ways !” 

Cocky chuckled, and before Rosamond could 
decide how to reply to this breezy welcome Try- 
phena and Tryphosa said together: "Isn’t there 
anything to eat, mother? We’re starving, and 
the Inglesants are too.” 

"Oh, no !” protested Rosamond, but Mrs. Bur- 
roughs only laughed. "Don’t be alarmed, my 
dear,” she said. "These twins of mine — and the 
odd ones too — are always starving, but they have 
all survived so far. Young people ought to be 
hungry; it’s proper to youth and health. There 
are cold potatoes, very likely, Tryphies, but, if 
you’d rather have it, there is pie, and fruit cake, 
and jumbles. Why, there’s that freezer of ice 
cream which we didn’t open at dinner! Why not 
that?” 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 57 

She was answered by the harmonious whoop, 
and Cocky cried : “Why not indeed ?” as he darted 
around the house. Vere started to follow, but 
Rosamond cried : “Oh, no; not for us I We really 
ought not to stay, not this first time !” 

“Great Scott! Are you going to turn out a 
formal girl?’' cried Vere in dismay. “You don’t 
look foolish, ril bet a doughnut Gaynor here 
isn’t that sort ! What’s the matter with ice cream 
the first time ? That doesn’t make it the last time, 
does it ? Go up on the piazza there, and sit down 
and behave sensibly! Hold on there, Cocky! 
I’m coming! Don’t strain yourself on that 
freezer, little boy ! Hold on. Cock — y — y !” He 
shouted these last words vigorously, and rushed 
around the house to the assistance of his muscular 
younger brother. 

Rosamond glanced at the girls and laughed, as 
Hale followed the other boys. “We should really 
like very much to stay,” she said, responding to 
Mrs. Burroughs’ nods and smiles of welcome, and 
yielding to Tryphena and Tryphosa’s emphatic 
hints, the one pushing and the other pulling her 
up the steps. 

Gay ran up readily, enjoying the adventure, and 


58 Daddy’s Daughters 

Sibyl and Anstiss needed no urging, for they en- 
tertained the same profound love for ice cream 
that most children feel. The boys brought 
around five brimming saucerfuls of chocolate ice 
cream, fairly shining with its own richness. 

“For the guests and for mother,” said Vere. 
“But you girls have got to come after your own ; 
that’s fair, because we opened up the freezer.” 

“Oh, Vere, why didn’t you get a tray?” asked 
his mother reproachfully. 

“Never once thought of it, mother,” said Vere. 
“What’s the difference? We left the saucers a 
little bit low on one side when we filled them, so 
there’d be a place for our thumbs. You don’t 
mind not having a tray, do you?” He appealed 
to Gay, as if he still entertained a doubt of Rosa- 
mond’s being informal. 

“Not one bit!” said Gay fervently, having 
tasted the delicious stuff. “It’s quite the best 
cream I ever ate.” 

“Delmonico I Is it ?” shouted Cocky. And the 
three boys tore off after their own portions, madly 
followed by the Burroughs girls. They came 
back, eating as they came. 

“We had to begin,” said Hale. “We made a 


The Burroughs from Their Burrows 59 

mistake, and got the least little wee drop too 
much !” He was busily catching the lumps of 
cream that were sliding down on the outside of 
his saucer as he spoke. 

Mrs. Burroughs laughed as she rocked com- 
fortably, enjoying her cream as much as the 
others. “Oh, I hardly think so, Hale,’' she said. 
“It’s not too much until there’s no room on the 
outside for any to run down! Get a saucer for 
the little dog and cat. We don’t leave anything 
out of our good times here.” 

Rosamond, Gaynor, Sibyl, and Anstiss went 
home later, escorted to the hedge by their new 
acquaintances, who left them greatly excited by 
their acquisition. 

“It’s the jolliest, maddest crowd you ever saw. 
Daddy !” Gaynor said, as she told her father about 
their visit. “But somehow they are not rough, 
and I like them. I believe they are very, very 
nice in their noisy way.” 


CHAPTER V 


FOUR ^‘FLORA McFLIMSEYS” 

T he Inglesant Place lay on the outskirts of 
an old town from which the tide of pros- 
perity and startling events had long since flowed 
away. It was such a sleepy, venerable, and safe 
town withal that Rosamond and Gaynor were al- 
lowed to drive alone into its very heart, or, more 
properly, were allowed to go alone in the buggy, 
holding the reins while staid Gustavus Adolphus 
took them to the post oflice and shops, and home 
again, for not only did the decorous old chestnut 
not need driving, but he was not influenced by it 
beyond accepting a hint as to the direction in 
which his owners preferred going. 

Rosamond and Gaynor were coming back from 
one of these trips, the morning mail in Gay’s 
hands, the superfluous reins in Rosamond’s. 

Gay held up a large envelope as they drove up 
to the house, before which Gustavus Adolphus 
6o 


Four ‘‘ Flora McFlimseys 6i 

stopped of his own accord, switching his tail to 
keep in practice, for no flies had yet appeared. 

“What is it ?” called Sibyl, rushing out. Sibyl 
lived in expectation of letters which rarely came, 
because a little girl who had visited Windsley two 
summers ago occasionally wrote to her. 

“We think it’s an invitation,” Gay shouted 
back. “We honourably didn’t open it, because 
it’s addressed to ‘the Misses Inglesant,’ so we 
waited for you and Anstiss, but that shows it’s an 
invitation.” 

She jumped out of the buggy as she spoke, and 
Rosamond followed, upon which Gustavus Adol- 
phus leisurely took his way alone to the barn, 
where Amos awaited him. 

“Oh, give it to me !” cried Sibyl. “Don’t wait 
for Anstiss ! I don’t know where she is, and be- 
sides she’s too little to matter !” 

“I guess she isn’t!” said Gay indignantly. “I 
wonder if you’d have thought yourself too little to 
matter two years ago? It’s a family invitation, 
and Anstiss has got to be here when it’s opened ! 
Anstiss ! Oh, Daddy ! Here’s your mail. Daddy- 
dear, and where’s the baby?” 

“I think she’s with Drusilla and Priscilla Bur- 


62 


Daddy’s Daughters 

roughs, out under the lilacs making summer 
gowns for their children,’’ said Daddy. “Did you 
get me the bond paper?” 

“No, Daddy-dear; Davis was out of it, but he 
said he would order some for you to-day,” said 
Rosamond. Mary Frances disapproved of 
Daddy’s expensive taste in paper on which to 
write a novel that was never intended to yield any 
practical results, but Daddy’s two daughters con- 
sidered the best paper hardly fit to serve that 
genius in which they had faith that was faith in- 
deed, being a belief in things unseen. 

“We have something that looks like an invita- 
tion, addressed to the Misses Inglesant, as fine as 
can be,” Rosamond continued. “We must go to 
hunt up Anstiss and open it together.” 

The three girls ran off, up the sloping stretch 
of grass at the side of the house, and found their 
youngest seated under the swelling lilac buds with 
the lesser Burroughs twins, as their father had 
said. But just coming through the hedge in the 
distance were Vere, Cocky, Hale, and Tryphena 
and Tryphosa, bound in the Inglesant direction. 

“Hallo!” called Gay, waving her hand to the 
group bearing down upon them. Then she added. 


Four “ Flora McFlimseys ” 63 

to Anstiss : ‘‘Here’s something for all of us, little 
Sis! We’re going to open it.” She and Rosa- 
mond dropped down beside the dressmakers, and 
Sibyl leaned on their shoulders. Gay took her 
stick-pin and neatly slit the end of the envelope, 
though such method was unusual to her — evi- 
dently she felt an invitation, which was rare to 
these secluded girls, deserved formal treatment. 

“ ‘Mrs. Alvah W. Plummer requests the pleas- 
ure of the company of Miss Inglesant, and of the 
Misses Gaynor, Sibyl, and Anstiss Inglesant at a 
lawn party at The Dalliance on Wednesday, May 
26th, from four to nine. Dancing on the lawn. 

“To meet Miss Evelyn Plummer. R. S. V. 

^ P.,’ ” read Gay. 

“Oh, lovely!” cried Sibyl, falling back on her 
heels with rapturously clasped hands. 

“Evelyn Plummer ! That must be Gladys 
Plummer’s cousin, the one who was coming from 
Chicago this summer!” observed Rosamond 
thoughtfully. “Well, isn’t it fine? I do so love 
dancing, and the lawn at The Dalliance is like 
velvet !” 

“Hallo, you four Inglesant girls!” cried Vere 


64 Dr.ddy’s Daughters 

Burroughs as he and his brothers and sisters came 
up. '‘Oh, you’ve got one too! We came about 
that.” 

“Did you get an invitation ?” cried Gay. 

“You have a surprised tone; why shouldn’t we 
be invited?” growled Cocky. 

“You should, if they knew you; I didn’t sup- 
pose they knew you,” explained Gay. 

“They don’t, but a Mrs. Plummer called on 
mother; I suppose it’s this one, and that is 
enough,” said Vere. 

“Oh, there’s only one Mrs. Plummer in town, 
and only one like her in the world,” laughed 
Rosamond, with a glance at Gaynor. 

“What’s the joke? Don’t we want to go ? We 
came to ask you. It .says : 'Repondez, s’il vous 
plait,’ and we wanted to know how to repondez ; 
what would plait us,” said Vere. 

The Inglesants joined in the Burroughs’ shout 
of laughter; the Burroughs appreciated one an- 
other’s nonsense to the full. 

“Oh, it’s mean to talk about any one when you 
accept her invitation,” said Rosamond. “Mrs. 
Plummer is kind and good; she is — well, she 
hasn’t had her money very long, but she can’t help 


Four Flora McFlimseys 65 

that. They have a great big, showy place — an 
elegant place for a party — and there’s only one 
child, Gladys, about fifteen — and, well, that’s all. 
Of course you want to go! There’ll be an or- 
chestra from New York, or Boston, or Hartford, 
or even from San Francisco, if Mrs. Plummer 
heard of a better one there, and they’ll turn the 
lawn into fairyland with lights and all sorts of 
beautiful contrivances! It wiL be bliss to dance 
there. There’s nothing like dancing, is there?” 

^‘No, thank goodness!” said Cocky fervently. 
‘‘That’s a good deal like the Wnite King’s saying 
there was nothing like hay when you’re thirsty. 
There may not be anything like dancing, but ’most 
anything’s better ! I despise it !” 

“Oh, how can you?” exclaimed Gay and Sibyl 
together. 

“I begin to like it,” said Vere. “It shows I 
am really older than Cocky, for two years ago I 
hated it too.” 

“I don’t mind it much,” said Hale. 

“We wouldn’t mind it at all if we didn’t bounce 
so,” said Tryphena. 

“Or if we were sure of a partner who could 
steer well,” added Tryphosa. 


66 Daddy’s Daughters 

‘‘I can’t dance with any one but Priscilla,” said 
Drusilla, “and she can’t dance with any one but 
me. Still, we don’t have to bother, because we’re 
sure of dancing together.” 

“Isn’t that funny?” murmured Anstiss. “I 
can’t dance with any one but Rosamond and Gay, 
because they taught me. Maybe it’s because I 
don’t ever get a chance to try with any one else,” 
she added with an enlightening after-thought. 

“Well, of course you are going !” said Gay. “I 
wonder what we can wear?” 

“I thought I’d get a red mull,” said Nathan 
Hale with a simper. 

“It would look well with your hair!” said Try- 
phosa, with a glance at Hale’s tawny crop. 

“Cocky ought to have a lace gown — made of 
maline, don’t they call it?” suggested Tryphena. 
“We’ve got enough gowns, we girls, and of course 
you boys have clothes.” 

“Nothing as nice as our gymnasium suits,” 
grumbled Cocky. 

“We haven’t anything,” said Sibyl, and her 
voice was tragic. “Oh, girls, can’t we go ?” 

“We have our summer gowns; wouldn’t a 
pretty, clean white dress do ?” asked Anstiss. 


Four Flora McFlimseys 67 

“We’ll see, dears,” said Rosamond in her 
motherly voice. “Suppose we go now to ask 
Mary Frances about it?” 

They all scrambled up, the Burroughs following 
the Inglesants as a matter of course. The friend- 
ship of these new neighbours seemed to be as- 
sumed by the Burroughs as a foregone conclusion. 
Without pushing — for they were well-bred, in 
spite of their breeziness — they took it for granted 
that they would be welcome. At first the In- 
glesants, who had spent their life in their happy 
little solitude of five, had some difficulty in adapt- 
ing themselves to the Burroughs’ free friendliness, 
but they had succeeded, and began to find it very 
pleasant to consider these big, bright, offhand boys 
as adjuncts, and to gain the comradeship of the 
two pairs of twins, who were as boyish as their 
brothers. 

“Mary Frances, Mary Frances, where are you ?” 
chimed the Inglesants as they came near the house. 

“In the pantry, workin’ my butter,” returned 
Mary Frances, putting her head out of the back 
door. “Come in. Good land, though, if you’ve 
got all the Burroughses with you the pantry ’ll get 
all het up !” 


68 Daddy’s Daughters 

'‘Come out on the piazza then,^» said Sibyl. 

“Yes, and leave my butter ! I guess not !” said 
Mary Frances. “I’ll open the door and you talk 
to me from there.” 

“It isn’t very satisfactory to talk to some one 
we can’t see,” said Gaynor. “Never mind, 
though ! We’ve had an invitation to a lawn party 
at Mrs. Plummer’s on the twenty-sixth, Mary 
Frances. It’s given for a cousin of Gladys’. You 
know what that means !” 

“Purple and fine linen!” said Mary Frances, 
paddling the water out of her butter energetically. 
“More purple than fine linen, because fine linen 
doesn’t show so much !” 

Rosamond laughed, and the Burroughs 
chuckled appreciatively, though they did not know 
the Plummers. 

“It means everything scrumptious, even if a 
little bit showy, Mary Frances, and we do want to 
go. You know we don’t get many chances to 
dance to such music as Mrs. Plummer will have !” 
said Rosamond persuasively. 

“Well, can’t you? You’re invited,” said Mary 
•Frances. 

“Yes, but how about gowns?” asked Sibyl 


Four “ Flora McFIiinseys ” 69 

anxiously. ‘‘Our^last summer organdies wouldn’t 
do, would they?” 

“Do ? Why, they’re rags, they’re so limp, and 
they’re faded, and Gay’s and Anstiss’ are darned,” 
said Mary Frances. “Stand aside; I want to 
empty this water out.” 

“Then what shall we do ?” pleaded Gay, looking 
imploringly at Mary Frances’ back. 

“Good land. Gay, I don’t know !” Mary 
Frances snapped the words out as she returned to 
the table. It fretted her to be obliged to deny 
the children anything, so she was always cross 
when it happened. “There’s money enough in 
the old pink sugar bowl for what you have to 
have, but there’s nothing for extras. I suppose 
you can’t go, and if you can’t I shall expect you to 
make the best of it, and not worry me.” 

Gaynor flushed a deep scarlet from the pang of 
this announcement, Rosamond bit her lip, and 
Sibyl burst into tears, though the Burroughs boys 
were there to see. 

“Great Scott, don’t cry! We can have more 
fun than there’ll be there, if we get up something 
of our own,” said Cocky. ^ 

“Come on, you dears,” said Tryphena and Try- 


70 Daddy’s Daughters 

phosa, winding their arms around Gay and Sibyl. 
“We’ve got lots of clothes; you can wear ours.” 

“Oh, it isn’t so bad as that, Tryals,” said Gay, 
who had adopted the boys’ name for this pair of 
sisters. “We can exist if we don’t go to The 
Dalliance, but we want to go.” 

“The Dalliance!” repeated Mary Frances 
wrathfully. “I should think girls that live on 
such a place as the old Inglesant Place would cry 
to go to a party at a house with such a new, 
varnishy name as that !” 

“It’s not The Dalliance, Mary Frances! But 
Rosamond is perfectly beautiful, and nobody but 
us sees her,” explained Gay rather cruelly, for she 
should have known that their devoted foster- 
mother yearned to display her lovely girl to the 
world. 

“Time enough!” said Mary Frances sharply, 
while Rosamond blushed furiously and uttered 
a protesting “Oh!” “Time enough, and it 
wouldn’t be worse for Rosamond if only loving 
eyes saw her beauty as long as she lives.” 

The young people went slowly and sadly away, 
the sobbing Sibyl supported by Tryphena and 
Tryphosa. Even cheerful Anstiss looked glum, 


Four Flora McFlimseys ” 71 

and the Burroughs boys tried to imagine what it 
could feel like to care for a party as much as this, 
and yet not be able to go. They had never lacked 
the means to do whatever they wished to do, and 
it was hard to realise that such fine little ladies as 
the Inglesants, living in such an imposing house, 
were straitened beyond affording party gowns. 

‘Tf only it were a fancy-dress party!’’ sighed 
Gay, breaking the melancholy silence as they 
reached the front lawn. 

‘‘What would you do then?” asked Vere 
curiously. 

“Go I” cried Gay. 

“How, Gay?” asked Rosamond. 

“Make Greek costumes out of that beautiful 
thin white stuff up in the attic,” said Gay. “It 
wouldn’t do for a modern gown, but it would be 
lovely in draperies. And we could go as the — 
what in the world could we go as? There isn’t 
anything classic that has four in it, is there? 
There are nine muses, and three graces ” 

“And seven Pleiades, and three furies,” added 
Rosamond. But her face had brightened. 

“And three fates. You’d have to go as the 
four Inglesants,” said Nathan Hale. 


72 


Daddy’s Daughters 

“In what-you-may-call-’ems,” added Sibyl. 

“Try pepliim or chiton,” suggested Vere 
blandly. “But, say. Gay; if you could go wobbed 
up in the stuff you speak of, why don’t you try to 
make this Mrs. Plummer turn her party into a 
fancy-dress thing ?” 

“I? I couldn’t get her to turn it into any- 
thing !” cried Gay. 

“Miss Winnie could,” said Rosamond softly. 

“My goodness, Rosamond!” cried Gay. “Do 
you suppose she would?” 

“We might ask her, and then if she thinks she 
can’t we’ll have to refuse the invitation,” said 
Rosamond. 

“If you girls don’t go we won’t,” cried Try- 
phena and Tryphosa decidedly. 

“Not a Burroughs of us!” added Cocky. “I 
don’t want to be mean, but oh, if you wouldn’t 
go!” 

“We’re going down to Miss Wrenn’s and find 
out if there’s a ghost of a chance for us! Come, 
girls! You Burroughs be around when we 
come back to hear our fate. Come!” cried 
Gay. 

. Miss Wrenn lay back in her chair and laughed 


Four ‘^'Flora McFlimseys 73 

till she cried when she heard that the Inglesants 
this time wanted her to transform a party for their 
especial benefit. But she knew quite as well as 
the girls did that the new-rich Mrs. Plummer 
could easily be persuaded by the little lady of 
whose old colonial blood, and of whose cleverness 
she stood in awe, to make her daughter’s lawn 
party whatever she suggested. The humour of 
the idea appealed to her, and before long she had 
entered into it heartily. 

'^My dears, I will get her to turn the whole 
thing into a classical party, all the guests in Greek 
costume, and a picked number acting the Odyssey 
on a platform raised under the trees !” she cried, 
springing to her feet. ‘‘Don’t worry; it shall be 
done !” 

It was done. The Inglesants returned to the 
waiting Burroughs in high feather over their 
initial success, which they knew quite well secured 
their ultimate one. 

Two days later the recipients of the invitations 
to the lawn party at The Dalliance received 
supplementary ones requesting them to wear 
Greek costume. 

The Inglesants were jubilant, and the Bur- 


74 


Daddy's Daughters 


roughs were sworn to secrecy. No one but them- 
selves were to know that Miss Wrenn had 
wrought her transformation, like a good fairy, for 
the benefit of Rosamond, Gaynor, Sibyl, and 
Anstiss. 


CHAPTER VI 


WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK 

T WO busy weeks followed the reception of 
Mrs. Plummer’s invitation. 

Rosamond, Gaynor, Sibyl, and Anstiss each had 
her own garden set apart from the large garden 
in whose box-bordered beds the old-fashioned 
flowers, planted by other Inglesant maidens, long 
dead and gone, still grew in profusion. The girls 
were annually much excited over the making of 
their own particular flower-beds, but this year — 
the year in which these flowers were to play such 
an important part in the household affairs — it was 
as much as they could do to get them planted in 
the second week in May. This was their proper 
gardening week, the week that Amos advised for 
their planting, and which he set apart for like 
work on a larger scale. 

When one is busy turning herself into a Greek 
maiden she has not much spare time to give to 


75 


y6 Daddy’s Daughters 

the service of the goddess Flora, however ap- 
propriate such service might be. Daddy had 
thrown himself into the coming festival with an 
interest not less than that of his girls. He was a 
good artist, in his amateurish way, and he made 
designs that enraptured the Daughters, who re- 
garded him with new admiration as a Phidias and 
Praxiteles in one. 

Miss Wrenn could do anything with her clever 
nervous little hands, and she came over to the In- 
glesant Place every day to sew, try on and drape, 
carrying out Daddy’s ideas with an enthusiasm 
that often improved upon them. What had be- 
gun as a cross between a joke and a desperate 
resource ended in costumes that were really 
beautiful. 

The adoption of the Grecian costumes and a 
fancy-dress party had transformed Mrs. Plum- 
mer’s May party in similar manner. Having 
brought her neighbour to accepting her sugges- 
tion, offered in the first place to help out her In- 
glesant girls, Miss Wrenn went further. She 
suggested all sorts of artistic ways of making the 
lawn party into a Memorable Event, worthy of 
great wealth — and capital letters. 


When Greek Meets Greek 


77 

Tableaux, classical dances, games, a little play 
had been arranged for, which were to set the fine 
lawn of The Dalliance with exquisite pictures. 

The Inglesants were the leaders in Botticelli’s 
Triumph of Spring, which picture was to be trans- 
ferred in living loveliness to the stage of the May 
party. A professional dancing master from New 
York was engaged to come up to Windsley three 
times a week to train the dancers, not only in The 
Triumph of Spring, but in other dances, tableaux 
and Greek races, which were to be run in rhythm 
to swift dance music. All the peaceful little town 
was agog, the Inglesants were too excited to eat 
or to sleep normally — it was no wonder the gar- 
dens suffered. If Miss Wrenn had not precisely 
carried out her threat of getting Mrs. Plummer to 
give the Odyssey on an open stage, at least she had 
brought about such an event as the young people 
of Windsley had never dreamed of before. 

The Burroughs sturdily refused Greek drapery. 
^‘Not on your life!” said Cocky. '‘Do you sup- 
pose Pm going into public looking as if there’d 
been a sudden alarm of fire ? It’s well enough for 
you girls, but not for little Johnny Hancock. No, 
sir!” 


y8 Daddy’s Daughters 

The other two boys echoed his sentiments, and 
Tryphena and Tryphosa, as might have been fore- 
seen, were equally opposed to the plan. 

“We’d look better in Dutch costume,” they said 
candidly, surveying themselves side by side in a 
mirror. “If you’d made it a Dutch party we’d 
have gone — as windmills.” 

“Or as tulips,” added Vere. 

“Is that a pun?” inquired the twins. 

“Two-lips, tulips; twins and flowers, yes, my 
dears,” explained Vere carefully. 

But the Burroughs were capable of surprises. 
They begged the privilege of seeing the Inglesants 
in their costumes when they were done, four days 
before the party. All seven of them came 
through the hedge toward the house at the ap- 
pointed hour done up in a remarkable assortment 
of garments. Long shawls enveloped Tryphena 
and Tryphosa, pinned around them so tight that 
their steps were limited to nine inches, ^^rusilla 
and Priscilla wore each a skirt of their mother’s, 
and jackets with the collars turned up. Vere 
wore a mackintosh, Cocky a winter overcoat, 
while Nathan Hale, with a grey army blanket 
around his legs and a table cover over his shoul- 


When Greek Meets Greek 79 

ders, looked like a sort of centaur, who instead of 
being half horse, half man, was half wolf and half 
good Indian. 

Gay, Sibyl, and Anstiss, dear little fresh Greek 
maids, stood in their classic draperies, watching 
the queer procession from the window. 

“What in all this wide world can they be up 
to?” cried Sibyl, who found her neighbours and 
new friends very exciting. 

“What is it? What are you done up in such 
queer things for?” cried Anstiss eagerly the mo- 
ment the motley crew entered. 

“It’s a secret,” said Priscilla. “Aren’t you 
perfectly lovely!” sighed Drusilla. 

“Say, that’s all right!” said Vere in sincere ad- 
miration as the three girls revolved for the Bur- 
roughs’ benefit. 

“You’d better believe it is!” added Cocky and 
Hale. “Why, girls, you’re great! Where’s 
Rosan|pnd ?” 

“I don’t know; she’s coming,” said Gaynor. 
“Tell us why you’ve been cleaning out your 
mother’s closets ?” 

“Not till Rosamond comes; it’s a surprise,” said 
Tryphena and Tryphosa. “Oh, here she is!” 


8o Daddy’s Daughters 

^‘Oh, Agamemnon !” cried Vere, falling back a 
step or two, and shading his eyes. But though he 
made fun of everything he was in earnest in his 
admiration. Rosamond, in her soft draperies, 
was a vision of such perfect loveliness that it 
seemed to all the Burroughs that they had never 
seen her before, nor ever had seen any one else 
half as beautiful. 

“This is our Psyche,’’ said Daddy, rising to lead 
the fair young Greek into the room; she had 
stopped short, abashed by her friends’ murmur of 
delight. “Not a bad Greek maiden, is she? I 
wish she might wear the chiton all the rest of her 
days. I think I shall make her wear it all 
summer.” 

“Well, you’re all great,” said Vere slowly. 
“But Rosamond — my ! She makes me wish I had 
worked harder at my Homer.” 

“I think I look more like a sheet and pillow- 
case party than a Greek,” said Anstiss very seri- 
ously, and rather sadly. 

“No, you don’t, dear. You look like a good lit- 
tle Greek jar, while Rosamond is a vase,” said 
Miss Wrenn. 

“Jars are not nice,” said Anstiss wistfully. 


When Greek Meets Greek 8i 


“Yes, they are, when they are honey jars,” said 
Daddy, drawing the roly-poly little classic to him 
to be kissed. “And you are a honey jar — filled 
with the honey of Hymettus ! But when are we 
going to have the Burroughs Mystery unveiled ?” 

“Now, sir!” said Cocky dramatically, throwing 
back his ulster. 

All the others disencumbered themselves of 
their varied coverings and stood revealed in cari- 
catures of classical drapery that caused the pure 
Grecians whom they had come to see to fall down 
on the nearest chairs with shouts of laughter, in 
which Daddy and Miss Wrenn joined with all 
their hearts. 

“But you’re Romans !” cried Rosamond, as soon 
as she could get her breath. 

“What it is to be learned!” cried Tryphosa, as 
Tryphena said: “How did you guess?” 

“We are,” said Vere with dignity somewhat 
impaired by the laurel wreath, which he had 
donned after he had thrown off his mackintosh, 
slipping down over his nose. “We are the 
noblest Romans of them all.” 

“I think Cocky must be a senator,” said Daddy, 
noting the roll that worthy carried. 


82 


Daddy’s Daughters 


“Who — I? No, sir; I am Julius Caesar,” said 
Cocky. “Why? — oh, yes; you mean this! Why, 
that’s the rent the envious Casca paid.” 

He unrolled the immense sheet of paper which 
he carried like a senator’s speech, and revealed the 
words, written upon it in letters so big that who- 
ever ran might read : 

“Received from C. Casca lo sesterces for one 
month’s rent of tent. J. Caesar.” 

“Why, 5^ou scamp, that’s very clever!” cried 
Daddy in high delight. 

Cocky bowed. “I hadn’t time to look it up; 
don’t know whether that’s high or low rent, but 
the tent is waterproof,” he said. “And I’m not 
sure about Casca’s Christian name initial.” 

“Oh, Daddy-dear, do look at this! You 
haven’t noticed Tryphena and Tryphosa!” gasped 
Gay in ecstasy. 

She wheeled this pair of girls around to face 
Daddy, and there upon their toga fronts — they 
wore togas precisely like the boys — were placards, 
one inscribed “Mrs. Remus,” the other “Mrs. 
Romulus.” 

“Yes,” said Nathan Hale. “The only classic 


When Greek Meets Greek 83 

twins we could find were R. and R., and Diana 
and Apollo. I leave it to you if our Tryals could 
play up to that latter pair ? So we decided that R. 
and R. had married twins — no reason why they 
shouldn’t, you know.” 

‘‘Every reason why they should,” said Miss 
Wrenn. “What do these girls represent?” 

“Oh, the Sillies! We couldn’t decide. It 
seemed, considering that they were the Sillies, as 
though they ought to be the geese that saved 
Rome, but we were afraid some one might not 
recognise them. We might call them the Gracchi, 
and I could be their moth — father. But Hale and 
I seem to feel that we’d rather be a Roman citizen, 
just S. P. Q. R.’s, or something like that, and not 
pretend to anything famous,” said Vere with a 
humble look, but a haughty toss of his toga over 
his shoulder. 

“We’ll make a little farce for you queer chil- 
dren, Mr. Inglesant and I, and you shall act it at 
the lawn festival! We’ll combine in it these 
characters you have chosen, and it shall be war- 
ranted pure nonsense!” cried Miss Wrenn en- 
thusiastically. 

“Not much ! I beg your pardon. Miss Wrenn; 


84 Daddy's Daughters 

I mean we’d rather not,” said Vere. “We’re not 
going to the party in these rags; we only put 
them on to prove to you people that we could be 
classical if we would.” 

“They’re not as bad as a chiton!” said Gay, 
who mistrusted that she looked ridiculous. 

“We’d go kiting, but we wouldn’t go in a 
chiton,” said Hale. 

“Why, I feel like Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient 
Rome’ now — poor edition!” said Cocky, pulling 
at the too tight belt that held his toga. 

“We might take mother with us; she’d be a 
lovely sight in classical garments! What could 
she be?” asked Tryphena thoughtfully. 

“Mar, of course. Oh, I forgot the s. That 
spoils the joke; don’t laugh. Yet she is Mars all 
right — seven times Ma’s! Oh, you numbskull!” 
Vere dashed down his laurel wreath in disgust at 
the failure of his attempt at wit. 

“Please, please go to the party like this !” cried 
Gay. “You’re more fun than anything! And 
Miss Wrenn and Daddy will make a lovely play 
around you — they’ve often done it for us.” 

The other three girls joined in pleading, and 
Daddy and Miss Wrenn added their voices to the 


When Greek Meets Greek 85 

children’s. In the end the Burroughs reluctantly 
consented “to make a show of themselves,” they 
said, and they sat down in their togas, with the 
girls in their chitons, to collaborate with Daddy 
and Miss Wrenn in making the play. 

It was almost dark when they finished, and 
Mary Frances had to call them five times before 
they could be made to understand that anything 
so trivial as supper existed. Peals of laughter 
rang out over the lawn as one after another of the 
jolly crowd contributed a suggestion or a joke to 
the absurd farce-comedy which these clever dra- 
matic authors. Daddy and Miss Winnie, were con- 
cocting. 

The Burroughs supped in the stately dining 
room with the Inglesants, and when supper was 
over it was quite dark enough for the Romans to 
return through their hedge without the wraps 
which in coming had concealed their glory. 

Miss Wrenn hurried off the first thing in the 
morning to tell Mrs. Plummer that she had one 
more offering to make to the May party which 
was expanding before its amazed giver’s eyes into 
something widely different from her first idea, but 
surpassingly different. With a glow of gratitude 


86 


Daddy's Daughters 

toward Miss Wrenn to which that little lady, 
remembering how everything had come about, 
doubted her claim, Mrs. Plummer foresaw the 
extreme likelihood of her May party being de- 
scribed at length in the Metropolitan press, for 
more than anything else in the world Mrs. Plum- 
mer coveted newspaper fame. 

“Mr. Plummer telegraphed me that he had hired 
Klopstock’s band,’’ she said — she meant Klop- 
stock’s famous little orchestra of strings and 
wood. “It costs five hundred dollars to get ’em 
up here from New York, but I telegraphed him 
back it was worth it. And, say. Miss Wrenn, 
there’s one thing I want to speak about: Gladys 
recites perfectly beautiful, and I want her to say 
‘Pm to be Queen of the May’ at the party.” 

“It would be delightful, of course, but — at a 
Greek costume party, Mrs. Plummer?” Miss 
Wrenn’s voice was gently deprecating; she real- 
ised the delicacy of objecting to a display of the 
talents of the only child of the house of Plummer, 
but she did dread seeing the design of the festival 
marred. 

“Why not? Good speakin’ is good speakin’ 
any time, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Plummer, and a 


When Greek Meets Greek 87 

set expression stole over her round face that Miss 
Wrenn knew of old. 

‘‘Yes, of course, but you see the Greeks did not 
have May Queens. — I’ll tell you, Mrs. Plummer !” 
cried artful Miss Wrenn with a happy inspiration. 
“Let the programme go on just as it was planned, 
keeping it purely classical, and then, after the 
dancing, when your guests are about to leave, let 
Gladys recite. It would be a sort of farewell from 
the young hostess, don’t you see?” Miss Wrenn 
devoutly hoped that she would see; she had be- 
come much interested in the success of the party 
for which she was responsible, but she perceived 
that it would not be possible wholly to divert Mrs. 
Plummer’s mind from an exhibition of Gladys’ 
talents. 

To her relief Mrs. Plummer said slowly : “Well, 
if you think so, Miss Wrenn! You know more 
about the ancients than I do; I kinder thought 
May Queens were an ancient institution, but if 

you think it would be mixy ! Well, of course 

I don’t want people sayin’ I tried to do what I 
couldn’t, and I want you to see it through. Left 
to myself I’d never have thought of havin’ those 
queer white cotton clothes worn to a party — I’d 


88 


Daddy's Daughters 

have supposed they’d have made the guests look 
a good deal like a Monday washline, but you said 
artists considered them the prettiest things folks 
had ever worn, and I gave in. And I must say 
they do look real graceful when the girls all wave 
their arms, and the long white stuff falls back, and 
they dance in that queer, sliding step the professor 
taught ’em. I guess the play the Burroughs 
youngsters act will be funny. I’ll put Gladys’ 
piece at the very end, if you want I should. I’d 
like to ask you one thing. Miss Wrenn. Couldn’t 
you git the Inglesants to come see my Gladys 
oftener? They’re pleasant enough to her, but I’d 
like to see ’em intimate.” 

“They don’t go about much, you know,” mur- 
mured Miss Wrenn. “They are so busy and 
happy at home with one another and their beloved 
father that they never had many outside friends.” 

“Oh, I know,” said Mrs. Plummer frankly. 
“But I want Gladys should git in with ’em. 
We’ve got enough money, dear knows; we waste 
more’n the Inglesants ever ’ll have, but there’s 
something about those old families — they’d be 
good for Gladys; they’d help her in society when 
she’s older.” 


When Greek Meets Greek 89 

Miss Wrenn glanced at her wealthy neighbour 
with a mixture of feelings. She could but respect 
her honesty of speech, and yet it was not pleasant. 

“The Inglesants are the cream of dear girls,’' 
she said lightly. “Sweet, clever, good, and most 
thoroughly little gentlewomen. They would be 
beneficial to any girl. But Gladys is a good little 

soul We can’t bring about friendships, Mrs. 

Plummer; it’s a true saying that love does not go 
where it is sent.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SYLVAN SHADES AND CLASSIC MAIDS 

M ay does not always make a proper return 
for her celebration by all the poets, from 
Chaucer down. She is “the leafy month of 
May,” but she is likely to be the griefy month too, 
for she is a tricksy, unreliable sweetheart to be 
so dearly loved by us all. Daddy’s daughters 
watched the sky all day long on the twenty-fifth 
for signs of the morrow — as though any one could 
ever tell what May was going to do from her sig- 
nals! — she storms through sunshine, and shines 
through clouds. However, the twenty-sixth 
dawned smiling and it smiled more beamingly, 
growing warmer as the sun mounted, until Rosa- 
mond, Gaynor, Sibyl, and Anstiss went to don 
their draperies at a little before three, confident 
that they were safely assured of a good time. 

Gustavus Adolphus took them over to The Dal- 
liance early, for being performers in the entertain- 


90 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 91 

ment preceding what Anstiss called “the other 
party,” they had to be there some minutes before 
four. 

There were so many guests already arrived 
when the girls came that the hearts under the 
golden girdles beat tumultuously. It was very 
exciting, and beautiful beyond their expectations. 
The performers were waiting under the trees in a 
grove, screened from sight by branches piled be- 
tween the spaces of the outer lines of trees. 

It was like being transported to the glades of 
the dryads to see the fifty girls who were the 
dancers grouped in this green bower, their Greek 
draperies fluttering in the soft May breeze, every 
nerve and muscle tense with excited life, as if they 
were about to take part in the triumph of Athena. 

The Inglesants were the last to arrive, thanks 
to the fixed principles governing Gustavus Adol- 
phus’ gait, and they were hailed with a joyous 
murmur. 

Daddy had gone around to the other side, there 
to leave Gustavus Adolphus, and then to find a 
corner for himself on the crowded lawn. The 
audience was gathered in an amphitheatre erected 
opposite to the semicircular piece of lawn, whose 


92 Daddy’s Daughters 

background was the grove where the performers 
waited, and which was to be the stage for the 
dancing, and for the plays and games. 

“Now, younga ladies!” said the dancing mas- 
ter, whose accent suggested a race older than the 
Greek. “The Triumph of Spring, bitte! Your 
bakes take — ready!” 

The picture could not be adhered to in all its 
details; the dancers were all girls, and the cos- 
tumes purely Grecian, but the dance had been so 
arranged that though broken by swift, swaying 
dancing the eight girls were repeatedly to fall back 
into the tableau of Botticelli’s picture in the 
Florentine Academy. 

Rosamond was the flower-decked Spring her- 
self, Sibyl leading her; Gaynor was the central 
figure that bears the wreath, and Anstiss took the 
place of the dark-haired youth. The three best 
dancers in Windsley were the graceful trio cir- 
cling in the foreground, and an older girl with a 
dark cloak falling back from her shoulders was 
the figure that follows on Spring and her at- 
tendant. 

A swift, wild, woodland note of the violins, 
sweeping from their strings a call to joy, silenced 



i 


Dancing on the Lawn 




I 



Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 93 

the hum of voices beyond. There was a moment’s 
expectant stillness, and then the violins and flutes, 
with a harp, and three spring-toned oboes broke 
into a swinging, dreamy, joyous waltz, and the 
eight young girls came swaying, eddying forward 
through the trees, their white chitons falling back 
from their upraised arms, their youthful figures 
lightly poised, swinging to right and to left, ad- 
vancing, retreating, yet ever advancing — the very 
embodiment and allegory of Spring. 

A murmur, subdued yet profound, arose from 
the delighted audience, instantly hushed as if the 
onlookers feared to lose a motion of what was 
beautiful beyond their dreams. Rosamond 
danced as if she were inspired; none but a poet 
and an artist could so have illustrated the spiritual 
meaning of the allegory. She was more than 
merely lovely, she was loveliness incarnate as she 
led her little band of maidens through the poetic 
dance which the gifted little brown Viennese had 
invented for them. 

Once more, and for the last time, the eight girls 
melted into Botticelli’s picture, standing in tableau 
for a moment, while the trio slowly swayed and 
swung with their hands uplifted and entwined, 


94 Daddy’s Daughters 

circling in one spot, the only movement in the 
tableau. The music died away. Then one flute 
note sounded, soft, mystical, like a birdcall. At 
its summons the eight maidens turned, joined 
hands, and ran in a slender line, like a flight of 
birds, out among the trees whence they had come, 
and were lost to sight. The applause was tre- 
mendous; the audience begged for one more 
glimpse of the beautiful picture, but there were to 
be no recalls. 

Wild music smote the air and all the fifty young 
creatures waiting in the grove rushed out and 
began to dance, circling, winding, stooping, 
bounding, playing like nymphs who had been 
taught by the brooks and winds to play. 

Then came races, run across and around the 
stage-lawn to the swift notes of violins alone. 
Then games set to music, disc throwing, ball play- 
ing, catch games — it was Greek light-heartedness, 
beautiful beyond description. 

At last came the play, and the Burroughs took 
the stage in their travesty of Roman togas, so 
funny merely to see that a shout of laughter arose. 
It turned to roars as the nonsense began, and Try- 
phena and Tryphosa, as the twin wives of the 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 95 

twins, Romulus and Remus, brought suit against 
Julius Caesar for misappropriation of the rent 
which envious Casca paid, and the Gracchi — Pris- 
cilla and Drusilla — appeared as witnesses for the 
defence, maintaining that they, as their mother’s 
jewels, had been pawned by Casca for that rent, 
and consequently Caesar had a right to divide it 
into three parts, that being like his Gaul. Never- 
theless, Vere and Hale, as S. P. Q. R., Senatus, 
Populusque Romanus, which letters they wore in 
immense size upon their togas, proving them the 
embodiment of the Senate and People of Rome, 
arrested Julius Caesar, declaring the Vox Populi 
demanded that he restore the money or do away 
with his Commentaries, that no American School 
Boy should ever again have to construe him. 
Caesar promised to destroy the Commentaries, and 
Vere, suddenly leaping upon a stump, cried: 
“Friends, Romans, and Countrymen, lend me 
your ears !” 

Whereupon Cocky, Hale, and the four girls 
gravely removed from the sides of their heads the 
immense ears with which their own had been 
covered, and gave them up to the orator. 

“Nay, but you, most noble citizens of this Re- 


96 Daddy’s Daughters 

public,” said Vere, turning to the audience. 
“Pardon me that in my grief I waxed forgetful ! 
I meant to have said : Lend me your cheers. 
Pupils say that Cfesar was a bore. If it were so 
it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath 
Caesar answer’d it ! But here’s a parchment with 
the seal of Caesar; I found it in his closet, ’tis his 
will.” Here Vere unrolled an enormous sheet of 
paper headed in letters fully a foot long: “Last 
Will and Testament. J. Caesar.” “He hath left 
to you, repenting for past ill, his Commentaries, 
which, an if you will, shall make the future school 
boy free from learning that of parts all Gaul had 
three. Hence do I turn to you, most honoured 
peers, demanding now you lend to me your 
cheers.” 

He got them. The whole thing was so ridicu- 
lous, and so well acted that the cheers could hardly 
be stopped when they were started. The Greek 
maidens had filled the artistic sense of the audi- 
ence, but the Burroughs had appealed to its sense 
of nonsense, and, perhaps, on a May day, with the 
sun setting in glory, and the air intoxicatingly 
full of bird-song and blossom-scent, the nonsense 
was the more delightful. The “set part of it,” as 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 97 

Gladys Plummer said, ended with the farce. 
That young lady seemed relieved that it was over. 

‘T don’t see anything in it,” she said frankly 
to Gay as they stood side by side supping in- 
formally. The supper was served from six 
o’clock, and never ceased being served until the 
last guest departed, leaving enough for another 
feast, for Mrs. Plummer’s ideas of a banquet were 
not bounded by anything short of the possibilities 
of the market. 

‘‘Oh, dear me, I do !” cried Gay enthusiastically. 
“It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw, or ever expect 
to see ! Why, it’s a beautiful party, Gladys Plum- 
mer, and you ought to be so proud you had it that 
you don’t know what to do! Miss Wrenn is a 
wonder.” Gay laughed as she spoke, remember- 
ing that the whole really marvellous festival was 
due to the yards of fine white goods which alone 
was the offering of the Inglesant Place to its 
daughters for party gowns. 

Gladys looked sulky. “I hope you think I look 
well in these rags I” she said. 

Gaynor surveyed her critically; she could not 
truthfully say that classic chitons were becoming 
to Gladys with her broad, very red cheeks, her full 


98 Daddy’s Daughters 

pouting mouth, and a nose that made no disguise 
of its tendency to turn up, frankly presenting its 
broad end to the world. 

“You see we are lovely as a whole, Gladys; we 
can’t all be beautifully Greek in ourselves,” 
said Gaynor, thinking that though Anstiss and the 
two pairs of Burroughs twins did not lend them- 
selves perfectly to a classic drapery, still they were 
not like this dumpy young creature. 

“Oh, bother the whole!” said Gladys ungrate- 
fully. “I’d rather have had a picnic for Evelyn, 
though she seems rather stuck on this idea her- 
self.” She glanced disapprovingly at her western 
cousin, frankly enjoying herself with a heaped 
saucer of ice cream and Cocky Burroughs talking 
to her, his face bearing such a serious expression 
that Gay knew at once he was talking nonsense. 

“In one way this party was a great relief to 
me,” said a voice behind Gladys and Gay. “It is 
so hard to get cut flowers in Windsley that it 
really was easier to have a Greek costume made 
for the children than it would have been to have 
found flowers for them to wear at an ordinary 
party.” 

The girls glanced up, and saw two of their 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 99 

neighbours, the mother and aunt of the trio in The 
Triumph of Spring. 

“Such a pity that no one sells flowers in Wind- 
sley,’" said the mother, meeting Gay’s eyes with a 
smile. “There is a little fortune to be made in 
that way by some one, and especially by some one 
who would take flowers to the hotels every day 
during the months when the boarders are here. 
I have often thought that I would send my chil- 
dren up to the hills daily with the flowers from my 
garden!” She laughed as she spoke, and added 
to Gladys : “But your beautiful, your wonderfully 
beautiful Greek festival has done away with that 
bother this time. There never was such another 
lawn party, my dear Gladys; how delighted you 
must be that it was yours I” 

“Yes, m’am,” said embarrassed Gladys, who 
had no small change in conversation. She sighed 
with relief as the ladies moved away, and sprang 
to her feet. 

“Come ofif somewhere with me. Gay, and let’s 
have some fun! They won’t dance till it’s dark 
enough to light the lanterns, and I think I might 
have some fun at my own party ! Come off with 
me !” she said. 


LOFC. 


lOO 


Daddy’s Daughters 

Gaynor did not like to refuse so pathetic a re- 
quest, and followed her rotund hostess in her 
draperies, which certainly did give her rather the 
effect of a haystack covered for fear of showers. 

Gladys seated herself on a rock in the farthest 
corner of a hidden nook. She crossed her foot 
comfortably over her knee, wrapping it around 
with the folds of her chiton and nursing it ten- 
derly as she rocked her plump body to and 
fro. 

‘‘I don’t know whether the ancients sat with 
their feet across their knee this way,” she re- 
marked, ^‘but I’m going to.” 

“I believe it’s not considered elegant for 
moderns,” said Gay, laughing aloud. 

“Comfortable, though,” commented the other 
young modern tersely. ‘‘Say, do you care about 
the dancing to-night ?” 

“With that music, and on that smooth turf? 
Well, I should think I did care about it!” cried 
Gay with an emphasis that allowed no doubt. 

“Oh, dear; how queer! I knew Rosamond 
would, and Sibyl, but you seem so sensible 
usually !” Gladys sighed, but immediately 
brightened. 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids loi 

“Say!” she cried with animation. “Let’s get 
those jolly Burroughses, and Anstiss, and I guess 
Evelyn would come, and do Greek statues !” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Gay. 

“Why, don’t you know? Just stand up in 
positions and be statues ! We’ve got all this stuff 
on, and it would be easy, and fun,” explained 
Gladys, not too lucidly, as she illustrated by lift- 
ing the hem of her chiton. 

Gaynor understood. “Of course it would be 
fun !” she cried. “We could do it right away, and 
it would fill in the time while we were waiting for 
the dancing ! Lll go fetch Rosamond and Anstiss, 
and Sibyl and the Burroughs ! Rosamond would 
enjoy it, and the Burroughs will like it because 
they can make it a frolic, and Sibyl will love it 
because she can pose, and she adores posing ! You 
wait here !” 

Gay gathered her draperies around her and ran 
off as fleet-footed as another Atalanta. Gladys 
placidly sat nursing her foot and waiting her re- 
turn. 

She was not long; in less than fifteen minutes 
she came back, having gathered together her 
forces, which were not scattered far; Rosamond, 


102 Daddy’s Daughters 

Evelyn Plummer, Sibyl, all the Burroughs, and 
Anstiss. 

“We’re going to be the Laocoon,” announced 
Vere from the distance, winding his arm around 
Cocky’s neck, and grasping Hale around the waist 
in such a grip that he writhed in the most accurate 
manner. 

“Now wait!” cried Gay. “V/e’re going to do 
it properly! This is the pedestal.” She pointed 
to a bench. “This is the pedestal for groups, and 
you’ll have to look out, or you will get most dread- 
fully ungrouped; it will fly up and dump you! 
And that rock where Gladys is sitting — you’ll 
have to get up, Gladys; I’m sorry for you, but it 
can’t be helped ! — is the pedestal for single statues. 
And the one who thinks of the most statues and 
who does them the best is to have a prize — some- 
day, when we get a chance to make one for her.” 

“Her, indeed ! It will be a he. Miss Ga^mor,” 
growled Cocky in his deepest throat voice, which 
was the admiration and envy of his brothers. 

“Laocodn first!” announced Gay, because they 
had already partly had it. 

The three Burroughs boys leaped upon the 
garden bench, tipped it over, fell in a confused 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 103 

heap of Roman togas, from which they speedily 
emerged as individuals, righted the bench, and 
formed upon it the group whidi they were to 
represent, amid the shouts of the girls below. 

Next Rosamond mounted the rock as the Diana 
of the Louvre, followed at once by Gay, with one 
foot raised and her arms pulled back into her 
sleeves as the Venus of Milo. 

Cocky favoured them with what he called “a 
solo of the disc thrower.’' 

Anstiss, with Priscilla and Drusilla, entwined 
arms as the three graces, at the suggestion of the 
boys, because they were so short and compact. 

For similar reasons Cocky persuaded Gladys to 
represent the Faun of Praxiteles, its slender youth 
being as unlike as possible to Gladys’ chubby im- 
maturity. With the fingers of his right hand 
spread wide Cocky represented the lizard crawl- 
ing up the tree, the lizard which the Marble Faun 
has been watching through the ages. 

Gay, with Tryphena and Tryphosa — “an extra 
child thrown in” she explained — gave them the 
Niobe group on the bench. 

“It’s truly wonderful how many classic statues 
we know!” observed Gay, descending breathless. 


104 Daddy’s Daughters 

her remark intended to fill in a space of time in 
which no one liked to say that they had run out of 
subjects. 

“We could be Pompey’s statue, the one they 
stabbed Caesar at the foot of, if we had any idea 
what it looked like/’ said Hale thoughtfully, 
swinging the end of his toga. 

“I’ll do one ! I know one !’’ cried Sibyl, spring- 
ing up from her seat on the grass. “Let me show 
you one.” 

She jumped up on the bench, and daringly 
mounted its back. It stood close to a tree, and 
Sibyl rested her hand lightly against its bark, 
balancing herself, but the others called to her a 
frightened warning. 

“Sibyl, don’t! you’ll fall!” cried Rosamond in 
distress. 

But Sibyl did not heed. Leaning her hand 
against the tree she lightly poised herself on one 
foot, her other foot balancing on the narrow back 
of the bench, one hand raised, the other on the 
tree trunk. She was the Mercury familiar to 
every one, and looked so pretty, so fairy-like, so 
ready for flight in that ticklish pose, that Olympus 
could not have sent out a fairer little messenger. 


Sylvan Shades and Classic Maids 105 

Just as her admiring beholders began to ap- 
plaud, and Gay made ready to catch her should 
she fall, the sweep of the violins was heard, and 
the call of the wood instruments. It was the 
summons to the dancing with which the festival 
was to end, and Sibyl started as she heard it. 

The movement cost her her uncertain balance. 
The bench flew up, and the little girl fell under it 
with a cry of pain. The boys hastened to lift her, 
but at the first touch she moaned, and fainted 
quite away. 

“She’s broken her ankle,” said Vere, looking 
up with a frightened face. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A SOLUTION? 

H ale sped away as fast as his sandalled feet 
would carry him without waiting to hear 
more. He came back in a few moments, followed 
by Daddy, Miss Wrenn, and Mrs. Plummer, with 
the doctor looming above them all in the rear. 

“One of the many good features of giving a 
party that includes everybody is that the doctor is 
sure to be one of them,” said the big man, smiling 
in the girls’ frightened faces. “Pity one of your 
statues broke, but I think I can mend it.” 

“We’ll take her right upstairs in my house. Doc- 
tor Dillingham,” said Mrs. Plummer, bristling 
with officious kindness which gleamed from her 
heated face as her diamonds gleamed from un- 
expected points of her toilette. 

The doctor nodded, and Daddy and Vere care- 
fully raised Sibyl, Daddy pillowing her slender 
body on his shoulder and arm, with her drooping 
xo6 


A Solution ? 


107 

head resting in his neck, while Vere held the poor 
little broken ankle and the other little sandalled 
foot in the hollow of his arm. 

Rosamond and Gay followed with faces as 
tragic as if they were attending Sibyl’s funeral, 
while Anstiss remained behind shaking with sobs 
and vainly consoled by Miss Wrenn, Gladys, 
Evelyn, and both pairs of the Burroughs twins. 

They laid Sibyl on the bed in one of the guest 
chambers of The Dalliance; it was so marvellously 
magnificent that Rosamond and Gaynor found 
themselves exchanging involuntary glances of 
comment with Daddy, true to the Inglesant habit 
of seeing all that they looked at, under any cir- 
cumstances. 

Rosamond pulled off the flesh-coloured stocking 
on which the Inglesants had insisted before they 
could be brought to consent to classic sandals. 
Sibyl’s ankle already was purpling angrily, and 
she screamed with pain at the doctor’s first touch. 

‘'One pull, a few pangs, and then nothing but 
patience, Sibyl !” said Doctor Dillingham cheer- 
fully. “Gay, hand me those improvised splints 
Hale Burroughs and I got ready as we came to 
you. Thank you. Now, Sibyl, no fuss, my 


io8 Daddy’s Daughters 

girl! Be brave through brief suffering, and I’ll 
have your ankle in place in a jiffy 1” 

But Sibyl was not the material of which 
heroines are made; she shrieked with nervous 
terror before the doctor really pulled, and fainted 
dead away again when he acmally did force the 
broken bone into place. 

“That doesn’t matter; fainting does not matter, 
especially when a bone is set,” said the doctor, 
seeing how grave Daddy looked, how frightened 
were both the girls, and how anxiously Mrs. 
Plummer flew from bureau to dressing table, of- 
fering the unconscious Sibyl various gold-topped 
bottles to be smelt. 

“You can take your little girl home when you 
are ready, Mr. Inglesant,” said the doctor. 
“Rosamond and Gaynor can hold her on their 
knees, or they can drive and you can hold her, 
with one of them to steady her.” 

“I want Daddy,” said Sibyl unexpectedly. 

“You shall have your Dadd}^ my Sibyl, and he 
will hold you like one of those kind old feather 
beds which used to take our forebears into their 
soft embrace,” said Daddy. “Gay, please go and 
ask the Burroughs boys to find Gustavus Adol- 


A Solution ? 


109 

phus, and have him brought around. Mrs. Plum- 
mer, you have been more than kind; we must not 
keep you longer from your guests.” 

“I suppose I hid ought to go down,” sighed 
Mrs. Plummer. “Pm awful sorry for you, dear 
child, but, land sakes, we’d ought to be glad it 
wasn’t worse! You just lay and look at the pic- 
tures in this room till the horse is ready. I must 
go.” She kissed Sibyl with much warmth and 
rustlingly departed. 

Rosamond and her Daddy tried not to smile as 
they looked at the pictures to which Sibyl had been 
directed for diversion — still life, a landscape litho- 
graph, an etching, some Gibson heads, all in costly 
frames, evidently bought to fit the space on the 
wall, with small thought for their subjects, these 
were the works of art adorning the guest chamber 
of The Dalliance, at which loyalty to its kind 
owner’s hospitality forbade the Inglesants to 
smile. 

‘‘Oh, I want so to dance!” cried Sibyl with a 
rush of tears, suddenly realising of what the acci- 
dent had deprived her. 

“There will be another chance,” said Doctor 
Dillingham. “I don’t believe I would try it to- 


I lO 


Daddy's Daughters 

night! You are much more like an antique than 
you were, Sibyl; you know they are usually more 
or less broken/’ 

Sibyl refused to smile, and the big doctor and 
her father lifted her very carefully and carried her 
downstairs when Gay ran back to tell them that 
Gustavus Adolphus was ready. 

“Oh, no; you must stay,” Rosamond said in re- 
ply to something Tryphena and Tryphosa had 
whispered. 

“You may stay too, dear girls,” said Daddy, 
turning to his other and sound daughters. “I will 
leave you in Miss Wrenn’s care, and Sibyl and I 
do not need you; Mary Frances is more than 
enough for us when we get home.” 

Anstiss climbed into the wagon. “I want to 
go,” she said disgustedly. “I don’t care for 
parties.” 

Rosamond and Gay looked wistfully toward the 
end of the lawn where the dancing was already in 
full swing; not less than Sibyl did they want to 
dance, and they were able to, and their chances 
were so few ! They hesitated an instant, but Gay 
met Sibyl’s gaze fastened on her face so reproach- 
fully that she decided at once. Sibyl was not 


A Solution ? 


1 1 1 


capable of desiring her sisters to stay behind to 
enjoy a pleasure of which she was deprived. 

“ril go home/’ said Gay decidedly as she fol- 
lowed Anstiss. “I wouldn’t care to dance when 
Sibyl had lost her chance.” 

^‘Nor I,” added Rosamond, hoping that this was 
quite true, as she followed Gaynor. 

“Good-bye,” they all called back to the Bur- 
roughs, who stood grouped together in their 
burlesque Roman garb looking after the Ingle- 
sants with disconsolate faces, in comical contrast 
to their costumes. 

“It’s no wonder,” said Mary Frances severely 
as she came out to receive the family returning 
so early that she knew before she was told that 
something was wrong. “You might know some- 
thing would happen when you go out like this!” 

Mary Frances had disapproved of the Grecian 
chitons with a severity for which no mere words 
were an adequate expression. Nevertheless she 
helped Daddy to carry Sibyl upstairs most ten- 
derly, and divested her of the condemned raiment 
with work-worn hands that inflicted no jar. 

Sibyl was unexpectedly ill after her accident. 
She was the least strong of the four Inglesant 


I 12 


Daddy’s Daughters 

girls, and the excitement and pain of breaking her 
ankle brought on a fever which made her ill for 
ten days. 

“There’s one good thing about it,” said Gay, 
looking on the bright side as usual at the same 
time that she looked into her saucepan to see how 
the blanc-mange that she was making for the in- 
valid was progressing. “Sibyl isn’t able to stand 
anyway, so she won’t mind so much the lack of 
her foot to stand on.” 

Rosamond laughed. “I believe I’ll be ill my- 
self for the sake of having Tryphena and Try- 
phosa entertain me. They certainly are the 
funniest things ! I don’t know what we should do 
without the Burroughs now that we’ve had them,” 
she said. 

“I think it’s very nice having two girls exactly 
alike when the pattern is as good as Tryphena and 
Tryphosa’s,” remarked Anstiss, without intending 
to be amusing. Rosamond and Gay laughed 
again. 

“It’s pleasant having Doctor Dillingham a 
daily caller when we know there’s nothing serious 
bringing him,” said Rosamond, as the doctor’s 
carriage turned the corner. 


A Solution ? 


113 

‘*You don’t have to pay doctor’s bills to the 
Burroughses, and I don’t know but what they do 
Sibyl full as much good,” said Mary Frances, 
wiping her hands on her apron as she moved to- 
ward the door. 

Mary Frances was looking grave these days, 
and Rosamond and Gay telegraphed to each 
other with raised eyebrows as she left the room. 

Gay nodded. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “I 
think there’s something troubling Mary Frances.” 

“She’s worried,” said Anstiss. “Your stuff is 
scorching. Gay.” 

It was. Gay took the saucepan from the fire 
with a groan, and tasted what would have been the 
blanc-mange with a deeper groan. 

“No good,” she sighed. “It caught in that one 
minute while I watched the doctor tie his horse. 
Come, Pickaninny, Pickaninny, ninny, ninny, 
ninny!” she called, opening the back door. “I 
wonder if he would eat it 1” 

He would; he proved it by hastening into the 
house with rapid mews, black tail erect, and by 
promptly burning his nose in the hot blanc-mange, 
which Gay thoughtlessly set down for the kitten 
without first cooling it. 


114 Daddy’s Daughters 

‘‘Such a thoughtless girl V’ cried Gay, tweaking 
her own hair. Trouble sat up before her waving 
his paws, and she justly divided the blanc-mange, 
which Pickaninny was walking around cautiously, 
and gave half to the little dog. 

Mary Frances returned as Rosamond left the 
kitchen to go up to Sibyl’s room. She sniffed the 
air interrogatively, and her eye falling on Trouble 
and Pickaninny seated at their cooling feast made 
superfluous Gay’s remark : 

“My blanc-mange scorched in a jiffy, just while 
I looked out the window at Doctor Dillingham, 
Mary Frances, and I had to bestow it in charity.” 

“Waste not, want not,” said Mary Frances. 

“Pm not wasting it; ask Trouble and Picksie,” 
said Gay. “I don’t believe Pll begin any more 
this afternoon,” 

“You’d better not; there ain’t enough milk for 
it. I call it wasting to spoil a thing; you can feed 
the dog and cat with something you set out to 
feed ’em with. You meant this for Sibyl’s sup- 
per, and it’s wasted, just as anything’s wasted that 
don’t git to the end ’twas meant for — human 
beings or blanc-mange,” said Mary Frances. 

“What’s the matter lately, Mary Frances?” 


A Solution ? 


115 

asked Gay, going over to the Inglesants’ Corner 
Stone and persuasively seating herself on the arm 
of the high rocker which was Mary Frances’ form 
of self-indulgence. 

“Nothing; I never wanted you should waste,” 
said Mary Frances, slightly drawing away from 
Gaynor. 

“Of course not, but that isn’t what I mean; you 
seem bothered lately — won’t you confide in me, 
me and Anstiss?” Gay purred in Mary Frances’ 
ear with a coaxing manner hard for Mary Frances 
to resist in the one whom — if she had a preference 
— was a little the dearest to her of her four be- 
loved girls. 

“Why, I don’t see any use in tellin’ you. Gay,” 
said Mary Frances. “It wouldn’t be of any use 
botherin’ you, if you could be bothered, and there’s 
no use talkin’ to any one that sheds trouble the 
way you do, so what’s the good in goin’ over 
things ?” 

“I’d help you shed trouble; come now, Mary 
Frances, you can’t deny I’ve a talent for brighten- 
ing up the outlook,” insisted Gay. 

“Well, so you have,” admitted Mary Frances, 
“and it needs brightenin’. How do you suppose 


1 1 6 Daddy’s Daughters 

we’re goin’ to pay doctor’s bills, for one 
thing?” 

‘'Mercy ! Do we run so close we can’t have any 
luxuries?” asked Gay whimsically. "But sure 
enough ! There isn’t a single bowl nor pitcher in 
the closet with money in it for a doctor, is there ?” 

Mary Frances shook her head emphatically. 
"Not only that,” she said. "Your father had 
some stock that paid pretty good, and it’s passed 
its dividends.” 

"Why doesn’t it go back and pick them up? 
Did it speak to its dividends as it passed ?” asked 
Gay. 

"You always talk nonsense, Gaynor,” said 
Mary Frances. "Didn’t I say nothin’ would take 
hold of you?” 

Gay nearly lost her balance with the sudden 
lurch she gave trying to hug Mary Frances. 
"You’d better take hold of me yourself, if you 
don’t want me spilled all over your kitchen floor!” 
she cried. "I will be serious, Mary Frances; I 
will be profoundly serious. Does it matter much 
that this stock went by — like the bad Samaritan? 
I suppose that’s what he was — the man who 
passed.” 


A Solution ? 


117 

would seem as if you’d ought to have sense 
enough to know that!” cried Mary Frances im- 
patiently. ^‘When you know how I make just 
such piles for every living thing we need, and 
don’t have more’n enough at best I” 

"‘Does Daddy know? What will Daddy say?” 
asked Gay, somewhat impressed, and looking over 
at Anstiss, who had been listening to this con- 
versation with a most serious face, pulling Trou- 
ble’s ears the while. 

“Know! Of course he knows; how could he 
help knowin’ ? And what do you suppose he said 
when he told me about it? ‘Mary Frances,’ he 
said, ‘we’ll have to get Amos to harness up Gusta- 
vus Adolphus and drive me to the foot of the rain- 
bow. It’s the only place where I’m sure of find- 
ing my gold — everywhere else is illusive, Mary 
Frances,’ he said. If that wasn’t just like Stanley 
Inglesant! And he didn’t seem put about at 
all.” Mary Frances spoke half in annoyance, half 
in tender pride in the man whom she had known 
since they both had come into the world, for 
whose father and grandfather her father and 
grandfather had worked, and in whose family her 
family had always felt the pride of the self-re- 


1 1 8 Daddy’s Daughters 

specting New England farmer in the oldest and 
most honoured name in his community, and the 
trained brains which his own are so well able to 
appreciate. Gaynor slipped to her feet with her 
face suffused with a love that was protecting as 
well as admiring. “Dearest Daddy she sighed. 
“Was there ever any one like him!” She went 
quickly out of the room, and down the hall to the 
library. Here she gently pushed the half-open 
door, and said: “I’m coming in. Daddy-dear! 
Pickaninny and I are calling on you.” 

“Come in, white Pickaninny-mine, and come in, 
black Pickaninny of some unknown coloured cat 
parent,” said Daddy, pushing away the sheet of 
paper upon which he was writing. 

“Oh, were you at work on The Novel?” cried 
Gay regretfully and stopping short. 

“Not directly, not under the spell!” smiled 
Daddy. “I was merely trying to polish a sentence 
of yesterday — it seemed to me there was a word 
somewhere that conveyed a shade of meaning that 
mine did not. I could not find it.” Daddy 
frowned slightly as he spoke. “I am glad of your 
companionship, Gayling; sit here.” He drew a 
chair closer to his, and Gay dropped into it. 


A Solution ? 


119 


‘‘Is it true that something went wrong with 
something you owned, and you’ve less money this 
quarter, Daddy-dear ?” asked Gay, at once begin- 
ning to disburden her mind. 

“Mary Frances has been telling tales!” cried 
Daddy. “Yes, dear, it’s true, but I doubt if it 
matters in the end. Pickaninny has been done up 
in sachet powder 1” he added as the kitten crawled 
up under his chin. 

“He sleeps in my upper drawer; he likes it bet- 
ter than Rosamond’s because hers is all hard 
orderly boxes, and mine is all soft disorderly 
muss,” laughed Gay. “Mary Frances seems to 
think it will matter. Daddy-dear ! I was wonder- 
ing if we girls could help it?” 

“How, for instance?” demanded Daddy, with 
his eyes full of laughter at the absurdity of the 
suggestion. 

“By selling flowers, for instance,” retorted Gay. 
“It came to me as I ran down the hall to call upon 
you. I heard Mrs. Ward at the May party 
mourning that there were no cut flowers to be 
bought in Windsley, and she said that there was a 
little fortune to be made by some one who would 
take flowers up to the hotels in summer. Why 


120 


Daddy's Daughters 


shouldn’t we Inglesants do it? I’m sure no one 
else has such a wilderness of flowers as we have 
in the old garden, Amos’ garden, not to mention 
our own four plots! Couldn’t we girls — and 
Gustavus Adolphus — fill up one of Mary Frances’ 
empty money jars?” 

“I don’t think I should like to have my daugh- 
ters turn hucksters, ladylike and only flower 
hucksters, but still hucksters,” said Daddy. “It 
does look a trifle black, the prospect left bleak by 
the stock’s failure, but it does not trouble me in the 
least. II faut manger, my dear, so of course we 
shall continue to eat !” 

“I’d love to sell flowers. Daddy-dear,” pleaded 
Gay. “We should be so very ladylike, and our 
flowers would be so sweet that I think we could 
turn it into a poem. Please let us, and just for a 
joke. Daddy-dear! If we don’t do that you must 
publish The Novel !” She held up a threaten- 
ing finger from which Daddy pretended to 
shrink. 

“That would certainly not be a joke, my dear,” 
he said. “We’ll see, my Gay, we’ll see ! You are 
such an enthusiast! Do you think I could per- 
suade you into a walk in that beautiful old garden 


A Solution ? 


I 21 


which you, unworthy scion of an ancient race, 
want to turn into lucre?” 

Gay wound her arm around him as he arose, 
gladly accepting the invitation. As she looked 
around her at the full-budded roses she said to 
herself : “All the same I believe it is the way out !” 


CHAPTER IX 


‘^MISTRESS, HOW DOTH YOUR GARDEN 
GROW?" 

G AYNOR came around by the side of the 
house when she left Daddy, to find Rosa- 
mond speeding the parting of an old woman who 
came regularly once a week for a roll of Mary 
Frances’ famous butter. The Inglesants always 
had enough of the products of the fine old place 
which was their home to share with certain hum- 
ble friends in Windsley. Rosamond smiled away 
the old woman now with her chatelaine air that 
always gave Gaynor a new thrill of pride in her 
sister. There was something so gracious, so free 
from condescension, yet so thoroughly the fine 
lady in Rosamond’s manner, that just now Gay 
wondered at herself for what she had to propose. 

‘‘Rose-of-the-world, come out here a minute 
and sit on the steps,’’ said Gay. ‘T’ve something 
to tell you.’’ 

xsa 


‘‘How Doth Your Garden Grow?*' 123 

“So have I something to tell you,” said Rosa- 
mond, complying. “Doctor Dillingham says that 
Sibyl may sit up to-morrow, and Amos has gone 
to hunt up that old steamer chair that Daddy had 
when he took our mother to England on their 
wedding trip — it’s somewhere in the barn. Sibyl 
is going to sit under the trees to-morrow, and she 
is delighted.” 

“I should think she would be,” said Gay absent- 
mindedly. “Look here, fair Rosamond, the In- 
glesant affairs are in a snarl.” 

“Yes,” said Rosamond. 

“Did Mary Frances tell you?” demanded Gay. 

“Oh, do you mean anything special?” asked 
Rosamond, turning calm though surprised eyes on 
her sister. “No; I didn’t know there was any 
new snarl, and our snarls always run so smoothly 
that they really are nicer than most people’s sleek 
spools.” 

Gaynor laughed. “That’s what I think, Rosa- 
mond! But something Daddy owns isn’t going 
to pay this quarter, so Mary Frances hasn’t 
enough money — really it means more than usual. 
And I’ve had an idea !” 

“A good one? I suppose it’s Sibyl’s doctor- 


124 Daddy’s Daughters 

bill that worries Mary Frances,” said Rosa- 
mond, pulling Trouble into her lap by way of sav- 
ing her ruffles, upon which he insisted on sitting. 

“Partly,” assented Gay. “Fve been telling 
Daddy, and he didn’t seem overjoyed by my plan, 
but he will let us do it when the time comes, and 
end by thinking it’s amusing — and so it is. I 
want to sell the flowers from our garden.” 

“Gay! How horrid! And who would buy 
them?” exclaimed Rosamond. 

“Mrs. Ward said the people up at the hotels on 
the hills would buy cut flowers if some one came 
every day — no, on certain days to each hotel — to 
sell them. She said a little fortune could be made 
that way; I heard her talking about it to her sis- 
ter-in-law at the Plummers’ that night. Now 
don’t you say it is horrid, for it’s nice!” Gay con- 
tinued earnestly. “We’ll take Gustavus Adolphus 
and drive every morning and get back every day 
for dinner. Mondays and Thursdays we’ll go to 
the Longmead and to the Hillcrest, Tuesdays and 
Fridays will be for the Meadowside and the Su- 
gawnee, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays we 
can make the Antlers and the White Hart — we 
ought to keep the deers together! — and take in 


‘‘How Doth Your Garden Grow?’' 125 


the sanitarium if we want to. We’ll cut our 
flowers every evening, make up our small bou- 
quets, and keep some loose to sell that way, and 
put them all on ice so we can start off early in the 
morning — it will be the nicest thing!” 

“How can you like it?” cried Rosamond. 
“Everybody knows the Inglesant Place, and who 
Stanley Inglesant is, and how would it look to see 
his daughters peddling flowers from this dignified 
old estate? Why, Gaynor!” 

Rosamond’s voice was full of pained reproach, 
but Gay stood to her guns. 

“If we were older daughters of our beloved 
Daddy it might look queer,” she said. “But you 
are only sixteen, and haven’t long dresses on, 
though you do have a fearfully long-dress effect 
in your ankle lengths I” 

Rosamond laughed, as they all did at Gay, but 
she shook her head. 

“They would know that Daddy allowed us to 
sell the flowers, and we should be acting as his 
agents, or seem to be. No one would ever under- 
stand that Daddy had not fully taken in what we 
were doing; after the first shock or pleasure in our 
schemes is over Daddy never realises what we are 


126 


Daddy’s Daughters 


about, but no outsider could possibly understand 
that. And it would be very horrid to think that 
his daughters, the Inglesants of Windsley, were 
peddling Daddy’s flowers. Noblesse oblige, Gay- 
dear.” 

‘‘I haven’t one bit of that sort of pride,” main- 
tained Gay stoutly. “Nobility obliges you to be 
noble, but it doesn’t oblige you to be silly. And I 
call it silly to mind selling what’s yours when you 
need money. I should think we’d be Inglesants 
and Daddy’s daughters in the way you mean until 
we did something that made us not fit to be Ingle- 
sants! And selling flowers is a sweet, girlish 
business, and we’ll do it in a sweet, girlish way, 
and nobody that is anybody will mind. I don’t 
know how to express it, but I feel as though noth- 
ing outside of me could rub off my being Gaynor 
Inglesant, but that I’d have to throw it off from 
the inside to lose it.” 

“Yes, of course; we all feel that way, because 
that’s true,” assented Rosamond slowly. “I don’t 
mean to be silly. Gay, and I do despise a snob, but 
— well. I’ll tell you. Mary Frances cares more 
for the family name and pride than any of us, and 
if she thinks we ought to do it — she and Miss 


“How Doth Your Garden Grow?'’ 127 

Winnie — and if there’s really any need of our 
helping out of this snarl — you know something is 
always going wrong, Gay, but it never matters in 
the least what it is! — why. I’ll give in, and we’ll 
turn flower girls! Does that satisfy you?” 

‘‘You always satisfy me, Rose-of-the-world !” 
cried Gay, jumping up in a rapture. “You are so 
lovely and conscientious, and so ready to be 
burned at the stake when you see a good reason 
for it ! Or ready to be burned to a steak if some 
one is starving! You are ever so much better 
than I am in such things, because to save my life I 
can’t get myself up to caring so terrifically what 
people think, so it doesn’t cost me a pang to give 
them something to think which they ought not to 
think! We’ll leave it to Mary Frances and Miss 
Winnie then ; of course I don’t want to sell flowers 
unless there is a good reason for it.” But she 
looked as though she might possibly regret the 
lack of the reason nevertheless. 

To Rosamond’s surprise Miss Wrenn took 
precisely Gaynor’s view of the flower supply. 
Her pride was of the independent sort of Gay’s 
own; she did not think that there was the slightest 
objection to the young daughters of the Inglesant 


128 Daddy’s Daughters 

Place doing something for their old home if it 
needed help, and a conference with Mary Frances 
settled all doubt on the latter head. So it was 
decided that the girls were to become merchants, 
to Gay’s unbounded delight, and to Daddy’s re- 
luctant amusement. 

Rosamond, once being convinced of a duty, as 
Gay said, never again reverted, even in thought, to 
the possibility of rejecting it. She accepted the 
decision cheerfully, and began to garden with all 
her might as the first step toward success. 

Sibyl refused to be comforted when she was 
told of the plan. Seated in the steamer chair with 
a Roman blanket, dulled by years, gracefully 
draped over her injured member, Sibyl cried in the 
most interesting manner over the family downfall, 
extracting scant comfort from her resolution not 
to help in any way in the success of what she called 
“Gay’s degrading plan” ! 

Priscilla and Drusilla, who were watching Sibyl 
with their common-sensed eyes, were half im- 
pressed in spite of themselves by this depressing 
term, but Tryphcma and Tryphosa, also spending 
the afternoon with the Inglesants, laughed till they 
fell over on the grass at Sibyl’s feet. “That’s 


‘‘How Doth Your Garden Grow?’* 129 


right, Sib; you keep out of the family downfall!” 
they cried. “You hold up your head, so every- 
body can see what an Inglesant might be if they 
wouldn’t fall. If you’re wise you’ll cut off Rosa- 
mond and Gay and Anstiss with a shilling — 
though the trouble is it ’ll be they who have the 
shillings, from their flowers, you know! Why, 
you foolish Sibyl you, don’t you see it will be the 
greatest lark ! Don’t we wish we could do it ! If 
you make too much money. Gay, will you leave 
two or three hotels for us to canvass? Now 
wouldn’t we make a hit — two little flower girls as 
like as two buds, or two dandelions!” And Try- 
phena and Tryphosa together shook their tawny 
heads enviously. 

“The boys will be crazy over the idea,” said 
Priscilla solemnly. “I wish we could help you 
sell! Will Anstiss go?” 

“We’re going to take turns in making up a 
pair to go; Rosamond and I, Anstiss and I, Rosa- 
mond and Anstiss ; but I think Rosamond ought to 
go nearly every time,” said Gay with an astute 
sense of the value of Rosamond’s loveliness. 

“They won’t be able to tell her from the 
flowers,” said Drusilla seriously, to Rosamond’s 


130 


Daddy's Daughters 

confusion, not with any intention of paying a 
poetical compliment, but by way of stating Gay’s 
meaning more forcibly. 

“I don’t think I can go very often; some one 
ought to stay at home to help Mary Frances,” said 
Anstiss with her most capable air. 

“When will you begin ?” asked Tryphena, while 
Drusilla and Priscilla eyed admiringly the chubby 
girl no older than themselves who was such an 
advanced housekeeper. 

“To-morrow!” cried Gay. “We won’t lose a 
day.” 

“The summer people haven’t come yet; the 
hotels are barely open,” objected Tryphosa. 

“Oh, yes, they are open, and there are a few 
people up there — I saw some driving up from the 
station just the other day; why, it’s the fifteenth 
of June ! Of course they are open ! And there’s 
the sanitarium; that’s a perennial, open all the 
year around. See how my business affects me? 
I already talk like a florist’s catalogue!” Gay 
triumphed. 

“Only that isn’t what perennial means,” said 
Rosamond quietly. 

“Let’s go pick the flowers now!” cried Gay, 


^‘How Doth Your Garden Grow?’' 131 


starting up unabashed. “There may not be 
enough to start with. Sibyl, shut your eyes and 
you won’t see us going !” 

Sibyl picked up her book disdainfully, not con- 
descending to reply to banter on so unworthy a 
subject. 

Tryphena and Tryphosa jumped up, saying: 
“We’re going to tell the boys and fetch them over 
— mayn’t we? They’ll want a hand in the very 
beginning. It would be just like them to march 
behind you up to the hills to-morrow with music. 
Vere plays the violin pretty well, you know, and 
Cocky’s beginning to connect flute notes — Hale 
would have to fall back on our old accordion; he 
can’t play anything else, and his playing on that is 
mostly swinging it.” 

“For pity’s sake, Tryals, don’t let them do any- 
thing ridiculous !” pleaded Rosamond, as Gay 
nodded consent to their fetching the boys and the 
elder twins started off on a run. The old garden 
was a paradise so familiar to the girls that they 
had not realised its riches until they went out to 
gather them with a view to their practical value. 
It was absurd to suppose that there might not be 
enough flowers for the morrow 1 Whole beds of 


132 Daddy’s Daughters 

roses lifted buds and full-blown flowers over their 
box borders; the spicy little pinks that bordered 
other beds were in full bloom; the syringas, as fair 
and sweet as orange blossoms, stood full of 
flowers, pansies — tig ones as well as their cheerful 
little sisters, the laclies’-delights — were lighting up 
corners, and popping up through the grass, and 
many other old-tirre flowers, true to their appoint- 
ment with June, were gay in its bright sunshine. 

“Enough! I should think there was!” cried 
Gay ecstatically as she began to break the roses, 
pulling vigorously at a stem and thrusting her 
finger into her mouth in rapid alternation. 

“Oh, wait. Gay ! That’s not the way to gather 
flowers!” protested Rosamond, as sincerely 
shocked as if she had been sixty instead of sixteen. 
Wherewith she produced a pair of shabby gloves 
and a pair of scissors, and fell to snipping the 
roses into her uplifted apron with a staid propriety 
that suggested to Gay Rosamond’s resemblance to 
some Inglesant maiden of a hundred years before. 

The three Burroughs boys came whooping over 
the hedge, immediately followed by the Tryals, 
who raced and beat Hale down to the old garden, 
though Vere and Cocky held the lead. 


“How Doth Your Garden Grow?’’ 133 

“Three cheers for the flower girls!” cried 
Cocky, spurting past his elder. “Are you going 
to dress for the part? Little flummididdle aprons, 
with bows stuck on crooked, and three-cornered 
caps, and a willow tray slung over your shoul- 
ders with ribbons? Say, it would make a 
hit if you’d do that! And garland Gustavus 
Adolphus; we’d get the Sillies to make daisy 
chains if you didn’t want to squander valuable 
flowers.” 

“Yes, we’ve seen ’em at fairs, flower girls like 
that, and they wouldn’t be in it with you if you’d 
drive up to the hills like a comic opera,” added 
Vere. 

“You may cut some asparagus for us if you are 
sure you won’t do any harm to the bed,” said Gay 
with withering dignity. 

“I know you cut down a little way, and cut 
slanting,” said Hale. 

“Of course we mean the foliage,” said Gay. 
“We don’t need any more roses, Rose-of-the- 
world! Just see how many Anstiss and I have! 
We’d better take some of all sorts of flowers, all 
the sorts we have, this time, till we know what 
goes best. Come now; we’ll make up bunches. 


134 Daddy’s Daughters 

Let’s go over there in the pear tree’s shade — I’m 
all but melted.” 

“We could give away the flowers we don’t use, 
on our way home,” said Rosamond, following 
Gaynor over to the deep settee under the big pear 
tree. She was not yet able to bring herself to 
talking of selling the flowers, nor could she regard 
their enterprise from a strictly business view- 
point. 

But no one else was as skilful as Rosamond in 
tying up the flowers, nor as quick to see how to 
get the best effects. The roses they left to them- 
selves, long-stemmed, delicious beauties, too regal 
to combine, but the pansies were enhanced by the 
rose-geranium settings which they were given, 
and combined cheerfully with the spicy little bor- 
der pinks, while the white syringa with the 
feathery asparagus was bridal in its delicacy. 

“We’ll lay them all in the ice house, wrapped in 
damp papers, and we’ll start by half-past seven to- 
morrow morning,” sighed Rosamond; she did not 
enjoy the prospect. 

“We’ll see you off,” announced Vere. 

“We’ll be on the watch to see you come home at 
night,” added Hale. 


“How Doth Your Garden Grow?’’ 135 

“We shall be home to dinner,” said Gay un- 
warily. 

“Oh, shall you ! I thought you were going to 
drive Gustavus Adolphus !” said Hale blandly. 

“Gustavus Adolphus has been a very fast horse 
in his day,” said Anstiss, rather hurt. 

“Not in our day,” said Cocky. Then he added, 
seeing that the serious-minded little girl had 
gone completely behind a cloud: “I don’t mean 
that, Anstiss! Gustavus Adolphus is a trump; I 
admire and respect him, and I’d far rather have 
him than the other Gustavus Adolphus — he wasn’t 
a trump; he was a Swede.” 

“Oh, I know you are joking, boys; I don’t mind. 
And he really is the very dearest horse!” said 
Anstiss, hastening in her turn to reassure the boys. 
She was always instantly mollified, and eagerly 
sensitive for others. 

“Oh dear ! I hope we shall get through with it 
well,” sighed Rosamond. 

“I only wish we had the chance!” cried Try- 
phena and Tryphosa together. 

“You might think it was measles !” said Gay. 

“Instead of rose fever,” suggested Vere. 

“It’s worse than either,” declared Rosamond. 


Daddy's Daughters 


136 

“I shall be frightened to death. What in all this 
world are we to say to people when we get there ?” 

“It won’t be saying; it will be doing, Rosa- 
mond,” cried Gay, surveying her fragrant lapful 
in high feather. “They will do all the talking — 
exclaiming, gasping : ‘Oh, how lovely !’ ‘Do look 
at this one!’ ‘Just smell this one!’ All we’ll 
have to do is to say: ‘Ten cents, mum.’ 
‘Twenty-five cents, mum.’ ‘Yes, mum; three for 
a quarter.’ As if we couldn’t!” 

Rosamond actually groaned at this graphic 
burlesque of traffic, but Gay did not wait to con- 
sole her further. Espying Daddy coming down 
the broad middle walk, she sprang up and danced 
to meet him, the others following at some dis- 
tance in her wake. 

“Daddy-dear, oh Daddy-dear, just look at this 
stock from this blessed old garden — our stock-in- 
trade, to make up for your stocks which so care- 
lessly passed their dividend! Aren’t they lovely, 
and won’t the boarder-summer-ladies just rush to 
secure them ? And Rosamond doesn’t know how 
we shall begin ! As though these beauties did not 
begin themselves !” 

“Why don’t you learn ‘Blue-Eyed Mary,’ and 


^‘How Doth Your Garden Grow?” 137 

sing it in duet?” asked Daddy, regarding the 
whole matter as a joke, just as his girls had known 
that he would, once it was settled. “It’s an old- 
fashioned song, suitable to these old-fashioned 
flowers.” And Daddy began to sing in a mincing 
voice : “ ‘Kind sir, then take my flowers.’ ” 

Gay flung herself upon him rapturously. 
“Really, Daddy, you are too delicious !” she cried. 
And the first chapter of the new Inglesant plot 
ended in a laugh, as did most chapters of the lives 
of these butterfly people, who basked in a sunshine 
that they could never see was clouded. 


CHAPTER X 


GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS TAKES THE 
FIELD 

K athleen mavourneen, the grey 

dawn is breaking,” sang a voice rising 
from the Inglesant lawn, just under Rosamond 
and Gay’s window. The voice was accompanied 
by a violin, while a flute, though not in any sense 
accompanying it, broke into the air at intervals 
when its owner could make connections between 
his breath, the flute’s stops, and his own mouth at 
the opening; it probably was not his fault that 
these connections almost never included the note 
required at that moment by the air. Something 
that seemed to be a hybrid of an old-fashioned 
hand organ and an intoxicated bagpipe uttered 
squawks like a panic-stricken hen, regardless of 
the other instruments; this the girls recognised as 
Hale’s accordion. 

“It’s that foolish Burroughs crowd !” cried Gay, 
138 


Gustavus Adolphus Take^the Field 139 

slipping out of bed and peeping from behind the 
curtains at the group below. “For pity’s sake, 
Rosamond, come here !” 

Rosamond followed Gay and peered out over 
her shoulder, holding back the edge of the curtain 
ever so little. Vere wore a military cloak of his 
father’s thrown to one side in approved operatic 
fashion. A large felt hat drooped over one eye, 
tastefully trimmed with feathers which even the 
most dull and charitable person could not help 
seeing were culled from the duster; these fell over 
the hat brim, depending from a wide red ribbon 
knotted around the crown. He held his violin 
sentimentally, and rolled his eyes as he sung the 
summons to waken in a voice that trembled preter- 
naturally. Cocky had the effect of finding his 
flute all that his strength could bear; he wore no 
unusual costume, but Hale, with his accordion, 
was attired in a short velvet jacket borrowed 
from one of the Sillies, and a pair of Turkish red 
trousers encased his slender legs. 

“ Gr hast thou forgotten this day we must 
sever?’ ” sang Vere with tremendous effect. 

Gay was getting dressed with incredible rapid- 
ity — she held the family record for speedy toilets 


140 Daddy’s Daughters 

— and by the time Vere reached his repetition of 
the question as to why Kathleen Mavourneen was 
silent, she threw aside the curtains and appeared 
leaning over the window sill as the boys below 
struck new poses expressive of rapture. 

‘‘ ^Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar,’ ” 
sang Gay ; she was versed in old songs, thanks to 
the long hours spent with Miss Wrenn in the 
winter. 

“Ah, county Gay, the hour’s to-day, it’s time 
you got a move — on you,” said Cocky in a slightly 
misquoted burst of poetry. 

Rosamond had joined Gay at the window; they 
heard Sibyl frantically pushing a chair across the 
floor of the adjoining room to get to the window 
without putting her injured foot to the floor, and 
her voice and Anstiss’ joined in the shout of 
laughter and the applause from Rosamond and 
Gay at this effort. 

The day was auspiciously begun, and Rosamond 
came down to breakfast with a more hopeful dis- 
position toward the new enterprise. 

Gustavus Adolphus followed Amos to the door 
and waited while the flowers were laid in under 
the seat and were carefully covered from the sun- 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 141 

shine with the linen sheet which Rosamond 
brought forth from the chest that had been part of 
her Grandmother Inglesant’s dower. 

Rosamond looked more than usually pretty in 
her white gown and the big leghorn hat devoid 
of any trimming but a soft white bow, and a single 
rose under its brim. 

Gay’s greyish-blue chambray, emphasising the 
tint of her eyes, was just as becoming to her, and 
the nodding red poppies in her hat set off the dark 
hair and the bright colour brought by excitement 
into her cheeks. She looked clever enough and 
spirited enough to succeed in a far more desperate 
undertaking than the one on which she was set- 
ting forth. Amos and Mary Frances watched her 
climb into her place beside Rosamond and gather 
up the reins, with impassive faces that did not con- 
ceal from the girls, who knew them, their anxious 
pride in these adventurous daughters of the old 
house. Sibyl looked disgusted and her good-bye 
was very faint. Anstiss flicked some dust from 
the carriage wheel, although it was more than 
likely to be replaced with increase, and said that 
she hoped that “the sun wouldn’t be too hot,” in 
her grandmotherly way that was so pleasant to 


142 Daddy’s Daughters 

behold. Daddy stood smiling, graceful, careless, 
his eyes full of amusement at the boldness of his 
little daughters in throwing themselves into the 
gap in their slender fortunes, but with every mark 
of entire freedom from any real interest in the 
result. Gay looked back at him as Gustavus 
Adolphus slowly made a preliminary movement. 
Something of a sense of dear Daddy’s disengaged 
attitude of mind toward realities, of his charming 
lightness of confidence, not nearly robust enough 
to be faith that everything would somehow always 
be well with the Inglesants, rushed over Gaynor, 
herself buoyantly light-hearted, yet with an 
energy that Daddy totally lacked. A wave of 
tenderness for him, something that she was not 
old enough to analyse, an impulse to console him 
because he was so utterly unconscious of the need 
of consolation, made Gay drop the reins and jump 
over the wheel, fly up the steps, and take Daddy in 
her arms for another impassioned farewell hug, 
before she clamtered back again to drive off in 
good earnest. 

‘‘Such a girl!” said Amos with his inward 
chuckle. 

“There’s only one Gay,” said Mary Frances 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 143 

curtly, turning toward the door. ^‘Anstiss, I 
guess our dishwater’s cooling; the fire was kinder 
low. I let it go down because it’s going to be 
warm in a hour or so. I’m ready to wash if 
you’re ready to wipe.” 

Windsley was a pretty town of the conventional 
pre-Revolutionary type of New England making. 
It lay surrounded by hills, with a lovely river 
flowing past it, a river that had in its day carried 
ships down to the sea and restored them to Wind- 
sley wharves fragrant with spices, enriched by 
curious china, heavily embroidered frail silk 
shawls, sandalwood fans, beautifully carved use- 
less ivory fans; elaborate chessmen, with knights 
on elephants, and castles with bells on their towers, 
treasures which survived to prove this picturesque 
past in corner cupboards and ‘^what-nots” of many 
a Windsley house. After a period of gentle 
deterioration of its prominence in the world of 
affairs, during which Windsley had lain slum- 
berous without a shadow of regret, it had waked 
up to find prosperity of another sort knocking at 
its gates. At its gates literally, but not lingering 
within its strict boundaries, for the tide of summer 
emigration setting out to that section of country 


144 Daddy’s Daughters 

was transmitted through the Windsley railroad 
station to the hills which surrounded the town in a 
semicircle on three sides. Here hotels had sprung 
up, as modern as Windsley was venerable, as glar- 
ing as Windsley was quietly conservative. They 
looked down upon the town from their heights at 
about four miles of distance from its heart, and 
hither Rosamond and Gaynor were being con- 
veyed by Gustavus Adolphus in a manner that 
hinted his opinion of the new trolley that attained 
these hotels up one side of the hills. 

“What do you think of going straight to the 
sanitarium?” proposed Gay as Gustavus Adolphus 
toiled upward. “There can’t be many people at 
the hotels, and there are always ten or so at the 
sanitarium.” 

“I feel like going to a hospital; the whole thing 
makes me so sick!” cried Rosamond with un- 
wonted vigour. “Yes, perhaps we’d better go 
there,- and if there are any flowers left let’s go 
home by the other side of the hills and leave 
them in Bella Italia.” This was the Windsley 
name for an Italian settlement over by the 
railroad. 

Gaynor laughed. “Poor Rose-of-the-world !” 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 145 

she cried. “She wants to square accounts with 
her pride by doing charity !” 

Rosamond laughed too, looking slightly 
ashamed. “Fm sure I don’t see what we shall say 
when we get there; I don’t know how to sell any- 
thing !” she sighed. 

Gustavus Adolphus turned in between the two 
columns of rough native stone surmounted by 
globes for electric lights which marked the gate- 
way of the sanitarium. The sun parlour, glass- 
enclosed in winter, but now thrown open to the 
warmth of June, was on the right of the broad 
steps at which Gustavus Adolphus stopped intel- 
ligently, as if he had been taking nerve treatment 
himself at this establishment. 

Patients in steamer chairs — all women — 
stretched up their heads as the girls arrived, as if 
they had been so many turtles laid over on their 
backs. 

One was in a willow rocking chair, and her 
glance at the arrivals was not suggestive of 
invalidism. 

Rosamond got out blushing so furiously that 
the rose above her ear was paler than her cheeks. 
“What a pretty, what a lovely girl !” Gay heard 


146 Daddy’s Daughters 

the turtles say, and felt sorry for Rosamond’s em- 
barrassment, though it put her at ease herself, 
feeling that Rosamond was the observed of all 
these observers. 

Gay brought forth the flowers, fresh and moist 
and beautifully fragrant. The young girls came 
up the steps together with their burden, and the 
vigorous-looking patient in the rocking chair said 
to no one in particular : “What a picture ! What 
a pity there is no instantaneous process of paint- 
ing, and that the artist is not here !” 

Gay mercifully took the lead. “Do you think 
any one here would care to buy flowers?” she 
asked, finding her voice unexpectedly shaky. 

“I should think any one would care to buy those 
flowers, and from you, even if she were not here. 
But here ! Flowers in this place are a boon, my 
child! Those in the grounds are not real,” said 
the vigorous lady, taking upon herself the answer. 

Gay laughed. “Do they tie them on the shrubs 
after every shower?” she said. There was a 
gleam in the eyes looking out from this lady’s 
strong, decidedly plain, but intellectual face that 
gave Gay a sense of freemasonry between 
them. 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 147 

*‘Now who are you?’' demanded this person, 
getting up from her chair. 

She came over and stood before the two girls, 
surveying them attentively. She was not above 
medium height, rather thick-set, and in spite of 
the increasing heat of the day she wore a short 
skirt of a gentlemanly brown cheviot with a waist 
of the same material, cut like a man’s coat at the 
neck, bound with black braid, and surmounted by 
a mannish linen collar and a black tie. At her 
belt dangled a fob with two or three heavy seals 
pendant, and her shoe soles not only obtruded, but 
obtruded obtrusively. She stood with her hands 
behind her back, and the eyes under her marked 
eyebrows were keen, yet fun-loving and kind. 

“Who are you?” she repeated as Gay hesitated 
for an answer. 

“We are Rosamond and Gaynor Inglesant,” 
said Gay then. “We live in Windsley — we have 
lived there for two hundred years — and we 
thought we would try to sell some flowers from 
our old garden because ” 

“You carry your years well,” remarked the 
gentlemanly lady. “I should not have credited 
you with two centuries.” 


148 Daddy's Daughters 

^‘That is because Windsley is so healthy; that’s 
why they built this sanitarium near it,” said Gay 
instantly. 

You’ll do,” pronounced the stranger decidedly. 
‘‘Now you come over here with me, Miss Rosa- 
mond and Miss Gaynor Inglesant; I want to talk 
to you, and you may interview the rest of us un- 
fortunates when I’m through with you.” 

She led the way around to the side of the broad 
piazza into the shade, leaving the other patients 
most unceremoniously; evidently she was not ac- 
customed to hesitate over her inclinations. 

“Are you seriously ill?” asked Rosamond, re- 
plying indirectly to her use of the word “unfor- 
tunates.” 

“Do I look it?” demanded their guide, motion- 
ing the girls to a place beside her on the settee 
standing against the wall. “If I were very ill it 
would be less unfortunate to be here. For once 
in my life I have done something against my will 
and my judgment. My doctor found me with 
headaches, declared I was nervously tired, and 
sent me off here, where I am getting nervously 
tired with a vengeance! Nothing to do but loll 
about — I was not designed by nature for lolling — 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 149 

and nothing else to do but read or make futile 
fancy work! And no one to talk to but women 
whose one topic is data of their various attacks of 
nervous prostration — they seem to have it three 
times daily, like an appetite!” 

She had talked on whimsically, plainly for her 
own amusement, without regard to her young 
hearers, but Rosamond and Gaynor had not been 
Daddy’s companions from their cradle for noth- 
ing. Though they were simple little girls in many 
ways their quick minds were well cultivated, and 
they did not miss anything of their new acquaint- 
ance’s meanings. 

They laughed, and Rosamond forgot the em- 
barrassment of her errand. Their new acquaint- 
ance continued : “But I am my own mistress once 
more, recovered from my temporary fit of yield- 
ing, and next week I shall go over to the Sugaw- 
nee, bag and baggage, and reject sanitariums for- 
evermore ! Why do you want to sell your 
flowers ?” 

“There is always more of everything else than 
of money at the Inglesant Place,” said Rosamond, 
looking straight into the quizzical eyes beside 
her. “We thought, or Gay did, for this is her 


I 50 Daddy’s Daughters 

plan, that we could make the old garden help the 
rest of the place. If we fail there will not be 
much harm done — we have only cut some flowers 
and have driven Gustavus Adolphus up here.’' 

“Is that your horse?” asked the gentlemanly 
lady with a twinkle. 

“Yes, that is he. You would never guess it 
now, but he was named after Gustavus Adolphus 
because he too was a Protestant hero — he used to 
protest against control when he was young. He 
was Daddy’s horse when both were young,” said 
Gay. 

“Do you call your father Daddy, English 
fashion ?’^ asked the reluctant patient. 

“Because we are too great chums to be formal, 
and he dislikes being called papa,” explained 
Rosamond. “Our mother died eleven years ago, 
we have never been to school, and our dearest 
Daddy has taught us and read and played and 
been chums with us all our lives. We are Daddy’s 
Daughters — that’s his name for us collectively. 
Gay and I, and Sibyl and Anstiss, the two younger 
ones.” 

“I wish I knew you,” said the stranger, and this 
time the warmth in her eyes was unmistakable. 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 151 

entirely unmixed with laughter or keenness. 
“Thank you very much for that charming bit of 
biography which suggests a great deal that you 
have not put into words. Now — confidence for 
confidence ! I am Esther Hardtwitt, at your ser- 
vice, and my husband is Robert Hardtwitt, head of 
the publishing house of Hardtwitt and Vellum. 
About these flowers, blossom lassies! Will you 
let me buy your entire stock to-day? I should 
like to distribute them among those poor victims 
of intermittent nervous prostration — Fm afraid 
Fve shown them scant patience, and not too much 
courtesy during my stay here! Would you mind 
very much disposing of all your fragrant stock to 
one customer to-day ? And how much would they 
amount to?’’ 

There was a laugh in her eyes as she glanced at 
Rosamond; she was quick to read minds, and 
Rosamond’s distaste for her enterprise was 
apparent. 

While the girls hesitatingly looked at each other 
Mrs. Hardtwitt whipped out a wallet which was 
as manly as her other belongings, and drew out a 
crisp two-dollar bill and a one-dollar bill that was 
nearly new. She held them up. 


152 Daddy’s Daughters 

“Would that be fair?” she asked. 

“Oh, no, indeed; only the two !” protested Rosa- 
mond with a quick movement of her hands behind 
her back. 

“Three dollars is not too much for such a 
quantity of magnificent roses, and all those other 
flowers, my dear,” insisted Mrs. Hardtwitt. “If 
you are in business you must learn to be business- 
like !” 

“Very well, then, and thank you very, very 
much,” said Rosamond. “If you will come down 
to the town, and will find our place, we will cut 
for you all that you can carry away.” 

She spoke so imploringly, as if she longed to 
set right a dishonourable transaction, that Mrs. 
Hardtwitt laughed outright and Gay joined her. 

“I shall not forget that offer,” declared their 
new friend as the girls arose to go, “and I shall 
earnestly hope that we may meet again, some- 
where and somehow.” 

“We intend driving up to the hotels every day, 
coming to certain hotels on certain days,” said 
Gay, readily putting her hand into the warm one 
stretched out to take it. 

“Now that is good news!” exclaimed Mrs. 


Gustavus Adolphus Takes the Field 153 

Hardtwitt, taking Rosamond’s hand in her left 
one. ‘‘Then we shall become as intimate friends 
as Emmy Lou could desire !” 

“Thank you,” said Rosamond with her fine, 
old-fashioned grace of manner. 

She and Gaynor ran down the steps of the 
sanitarium with empty hands and light hearts, 
and this time Rosamond gathered up the reins to 
drive with a courage which she totally lacked in 
setting out. 

As Gustavus Adolphus turned out of the gate- 
way the girls looked back, and there at the head 
of the steps still stood Mrs. Hardtwitt with her 
hands behind her back, her solid shoes slightly 
spread apart, watching their departure with what 
they felt sure was the warm laughter in her eyes 
which already they had learned to like and to feel 
was a truly friendly regard. 


CHAPTER XI 


UP IN THE HILLS MEANS DOWN IN 
THE WORLD 

G USTAVUS ADOLPHUS came home down 
the inclined road at a pace reminiscent of his 
early speed, whisking his tail merrily to the tune 
of his own hoofs. Rosamond and Gay shared his 
elation, from a similar cause. Both the girls and 
the horse — the former figuratively, the latter 
literally — were rejoicing in the prospect of oats to 
come. Even Rosamond could not look with con- 
tinued disfavour on Gaynor’s scheme since they 
were returning from this first experiment of it 
with success, and after a morning that had been 
actually pleasant instead of the ordeal to which she 
had been looking forward. 

“Well Amos interrogated them with his long 
smile as they drove down by the barn from the 
rear entrance and stopped there. 

“Yes indeed; very well, Amos!” cried Gay, 
154 


Up in the Hills 155 

jumping out, the very embodiment of her nick- 
name. 

“All the flowers stayed at the sanitarum, not 
because they were beginning to fade either!” 
added Rosamond, resting her hand affectionately 
on Amos’ reliable shoulder as she sprang over the 
wheel. 

They raced up over the lawn by a short cut to 
the house, waving at Sibyl the result of their trip. 
Even her lofty soul was not proof against the two 
crisp bills which she spied, and it tumbled down, 
so to speak, from its altitude as she cried : “How 
much is it ? Where did you go ?” 

“Only to the sanitarium,” said Rosamond, 
dropping into the sagging hammock, overstrained 
by the combined swinging of Daddy’s daughters. 
“There was the most gentlemanly lady, and she 
took a fancy to our posies and bought them all.” 

“Come out here, little Dependence,” called Gay 
from the upper step where she sat fanning herself 
with her hat. “Come and welcome your victori- 
ous sisters.” 

For Anstiss’ decided little nose had been thrust 
out of the dining-room door, adorned with a 
streak of flour ; she had been helping Mary 


156 Daddy’s Daughters 

Frances to her own intense satisfaction in the 
sense of importance it gave her, as well as in her 
profound love for homely things. 

The rosy little lass at once accepted the invita- 
tion, which was heard also by Daddy, who came 
out bearing, like Anstiss, the stamp of his best- 
beloved pursuit, an inkstain on his slender middle 
finger. 

“Have your flowers secured us flour?” he de- 
manded as light-heartedly as if the question could 
have no serious import. “Are you as warm as 
you look, dear Daughters? And did you have a 
pleasant drive ?” 

“What luck?” asked Anstiss tersely, wrinkling 
her brow anxiously. One might have supposed 
that she were forty and Daddy eleven. 

“The luckiest luck!” cried Gay, displaying the 
result proudly. “Sold them all for three dollars, 
up at the sanitarium, and to the nicest, queer per- 
son, who looked as though she didn’t need a 
sanitarium as much as she needed an automobile — 
she doesn’t need it, either; she is going away to 
the Sugawnee right off.” 

“Doesn’t need the automobile or the sani- 
tarium? Your meaning is involved. Gay,” said 


Down in the World 157 

Daddy. “What are you going to do with your 
wealth? Buy trinkets to go junketing? Mark 
the pleasant flavour of those two words ! They’re 
favourites of mine.” 

Gay’s face clouded for a moment; she had 
thought that Daddy would remember that she was 
trying to rescue and to help him. Anstiss 
groaned aloud at this question. 

“Why, Daddy, we’re poor; don’t you know?” 
she asked reproachfully. 

“Who, I? No, indeed, you veritable little 
Martha ! I am rich, the richest man in the com- 
monwealth!” cried Daddy, laying his hand on 
Gay’s rippling hair with a significant glance 
around the little circle of children. 

“Who do you suppose this lady was who bought 
all our stock to-day?” asked Rosamond with an 
appreciative smile in return for Daddy’s lovingly 
implied compliment. 

“The goddess Flora, rewarding you,” said 
Daddy promptly. 

“Not one bit,” said Rosamond. “She was Mrs. 
Hardtwitt, and her husband is the great publisher 
Hardtwitt, of Hardtwitt and Vellum.” Rosa- 
mond looked at Daddy wistfully as she spoke; 


158 Daddy’s Daughters 

the name of the famous publishing house was 
very suggestive of their desires for the novel. 

But if Daddy understood her thought he did 
not betray his understanding, and before he had a 
chance to speak Sibyl said pensively : “I wish you 
would use some of your money for me.” 

‘‘Why, that’s the very thing we meant to do, 
earn money for Doctor Dillingham,” said Gay 
quickly. 

“That isn’t for me, not for me myself,” said 
Sibyl. “I would like about two dollars of that 
money for my very self.” 

“And that would not be an overpowering pro- 
portion : two-thirds for our little invalid !” said 
Daddy. 

But Mary Frances, who had come out to help 
Sibyl in to dinner, and to call the others, inter- 
posed. “I’d be ashamed, Sibyl, to object to the 
girls sellin’ flowers, and then wantin’ to take the 
money they brought home to pay your doctor’s 
bills for yourself! You ought to carry your 
feelin’ right out, and add a little gratitude to it 
too I” she said. 

“Oh well, Mary Frances, Sibyl did not think 
of it in that way!” said Rosamond, extricating 


up in the Hills 159 

herself with difficulty from the hollow in the ham- 
mock. “What did you want to buy, Sibyl ?” 

“Just one of those lovely cut crystal chains — 
they Ve such colours in them, you’ve no idea ! But 
never mind; Mary Frances thinks Fm selfish — I 
don’t want it! Only some of those flowers you 
sold really were mine, and I thought Fd like to 
hold the chain, and make the colours come and go 
out here in the sunshine while I can’t walk.” 
Sibyl’s voice was the quintessence of martrydom 
with none of its triumph, and Rosamond and Gay 
glanced at each other. Rosamond nodded, and 
Gay scrambled to her feet, and dropped the larger 
of her two bills into Sibyl’s hands as she ran off to 
make herself presentable for dinner. 

“Here, Sib,” she said. “Fm willing if Rosa- 
mond is, and Daddy wants you to have it.” 

Sibyl grasped the two dollars with eager 
fingers. “Oh, thanks!” she cried, beaming; and 
Daddy added: “That’s my own generous little 
daughters !” 

“Fd rather Daddy would help me in,” said 
Sibyl, turning from Mary Frances’ extended 
hands and disapproving face, to Daddy’s sym- 
pathy. 


i6o Daddy’s Daughters 

Anstiss followed Mary Frances into the kitchen 
with her common-sensed little mind entirely in 
agreement with Mary Frances. 

“Sibyl is very, very selfish,” she said decidedly. 
“I don’t see how she can take money from the girls 
when she didn’t want them to earn it, even to 
help all of us. And dear Daddy doesn’t under- 
stand one bit, and he’s so sorry for Sibyl because 
she has to sit still there ! Besides he hates to say 
no to one of us.” 

“Better be a cripple for life than selfish, besides 
spendin’ on nonsense when there’s a bill to be 
met,” said Mary Frances with the sternness of her 
uncompromising principles. 

Rosamond and Gay dashed the water over their 
warm faces with a latent feeling that their jubilant 
hearts had undergone a similar process. It really 
was not fair of Sibyl, and she might understand if 
Daddy did not; she ought to share their desire to 
help him. Two-thirds of their morning’s work 
was lost. 

“But we succeeded just the same,” said Gay, 
answering her own thoughts as well as Rosa- 
mond’s; neither had spoken. “And this won’t 
happen again. To-morrow we will begin the 


Down in the World i6i 

hotels/’ True to her reputation Gay could not 
stay depressed long. She had a fortunate 
peculiarity of sight that prevented her looking at 
the dark side. 

The next morning she and Rosamond once 
more sallied forth. There were not many guests 
yet in the hotels, but enough to make the trip ex- 
citing. Those that were there seemed to regard 
the coming of the pretty little flower merchants as 
an excellent joke; Rosamond and Gaynor’s perfect 
simplicity of good breeding, perhaps, was respon- 
sible for this — no one could seriously regard them 
as vending flowers for profit. A few roses to this 
one, a bunch of pansies to another, and gradually 
the two baskets that held their wares were nearly 
emptied. There were enough flowers left this 
time to allow Rosamond the pleasure of driving 
home through Bella Italia and bestowing some 
blossoms on the beauty-loving inhabitants of this 
quarter of Windsley. 

Every day the little play was enacted over 
again. Its novelty began to wear off, but with it 
went also the dread with which the girls had be- 
gun, and the pleasant hoard in the gold-banded 
teapot, which Mary Frances had appointed an ad- 


1 62 Daddy’s Daughters 

ditional treasury for their sole use, proved that 
Daddy’s daughters were honourably serving the 
family. 

“When are you going to fulfil my promises for 
you, and go to see Gladys Plummer?” demanded 
Miss Wrenn one afternoon as she welcomed Gay 
and Anstiss, who had run down to the Wrenn 
house, as usual to consult its little mistress in one 
of their puzzles. 

“We paid our party call,” said Gay. 

“And there you would like to stop?” hinted 
Miss Winnie. “That isn’t fair. Gay, my dear! 
You know I have a little feeling for my poor-rich 
neighbour — she is so honestly and frankly trying 
to live up to her views of what is best for that one 
child of hers! And she does want Gladys to 
know you, and Gladys is not a bad sort of girl in 
the least, even if she isn’t wildly interesting. 
Many people are not, as you’ll discover when you 
are older.” 

“I’ve suspected it already, Miss Winnie !” said 
Gay with a laugh. “I suppose it is mean and self- 
ish not to go anywhere except where you want to 
go! But if I were rich I’d rather pay cheques 
than calls to the needy.” 


up in the Hills 163 

“You would not be alone in that preference, my 
dear,’' said Miss Y^innie. “But you see, in the 
first place, you are not rich, so you cannot pay the 
cheques, while you can pay the calls. And, in the 
second place, I sometimes think that the people 
who do not need money, but do need all sorts of 
kindness, and for all sorts of reasons, are more 
deserving of charity than the sort whose hunger 
can be relieved by donations. Girls like you little 
Inglesants, with no wealth, but every other 
gracious possession, tact, good-breeding, high 
standards, attraction, are set apart for the higher 
forms of giving — and very glad you should be 
for such a beautiful vocation. If only you keep 
your eyes and ears open, and are ready to sym- 
pathise, you will find all through life plenty of 
prosperous starvelings who will beg of you the 
sympathy for which they are dying, and which it 
is such a rare gift to bestow. I didn’t mean to 
preach you a sermon, and with Gladys Plummer 
as a text!” 

“We love your sermons, dear Miss Winnie!” 
cried Gay eagerly. 

“I think I could go and clean up poor people’s 
houses, like Salvation Army girls, better than I 


164 Daddy’s Daughters 

could help them the way you mean,” said Anstiss 
in all seriousness, and with considerable likeli- 
hood of being right. 

‘‘I didn’t mean to refuse to go to see Gladys 
Plummer, but since we drive out every morning, 
and we do want to see the Burroughs afternoons 
a good deal, there isn’t much time — besides it is 
so hot in July!” Gay ended her speech with a 
sigh, for she greatly preferred winter to summer. 

“So it is, but then you know it would never do 
to be cool when you go to see some one!” said 
Miss Wrenn with her twinkle and the love of 
nonsense which endeared her to her friends of all 
ages. 

“Rosamond and I will go to-mor — no, not to- 
morrow, but the day after; I promise you by all 
that’s gay,” said Gaynor, with her favourite 
pledge of her own invention, as she rose to go. 

The next afternoon found the four Inglesant 
girls disposed around Daddy on the grass in the 
southern shadow of the house where the breeze 
was strongest. On the slightly outer edge of their 
circle were all the Burroughs, the boys whittling 
for dear life and the girls doing nothing at all 
with equal perseverance. Daddy was reading 


Down in the World 165 

aloud, ‘‘The Holy Grail,” and in spite of their 
noisy love of jollity, and their shrewd, unpoetical 
faces, the Burroughs were enjoying the spiritual 
beauty of the story, and the perfection of Tenny- 
son, almost as much as the Inglesants. Not quite 
as much, for to the reading Daddy’s daughters 
brought the familiarity which enhances the 
beauty of each word, and minds trained from 
their dawn by this artistic Daddy to apprecia- 
tion of the best in literature. 

Upon this scene came Miss Wrenn with a quick 
step, and an untranslatable expression on her 
lively face. Daddy stopped reading and arose, 
motioning Miss Wrenn to the place on the grass 
which he had just occupied. 

“Take my chair. Miss Wrenn,” he said. “I 
had it newly upholstered in April.” 

“I am not in a mood to like new things,” Miss 
Wrenn retorted, sitting down by Rosamond, with 
the queer expression on her face intensified. 
“Don’t stop the reading; I shall be glad to wait 
till it is over for what I came to say.” 

“If you don’t mind — there are only three pages 
more,” said Daddy, fluttering the leaves of his 
copy of the “Idyls of the King,” worn by much 


1 66 Daddy's Daughters 

carrying in his pocket. Then he continued in the 
voice which his children justly considered one of 
the sweetest voices in the world : “ ‘And there sat 
Arthur on the dais-throne/ ” continuing to the 
end. “We never get too much of Arthur, we 
Daddy and Daughters,” he said, letting the little 
volume fall on his knee as he ended. “Now, 
Miss Wrenn, what is your news ? For you looked 
full of portent as you came up.” 

“I have been wondering how to tell you, and I 
have concluded that the best way is to tell you 
directly, because it is really very funny after all. 
At first I felt annoyed, but a sense of humour 
gives things their true values, and this is only 
funny. You are to be let off from our call of to- 
morrow, Rosamond and Gay!” said Miss Wrenn. 

“That’s good news 1” cried Gay. “Why are we 
let off, though ?” 

“I met Mrs. Plummer to-day and spoke of your 
intention of calling on Gladys to-morrow. To my 
surprise Mrs. Plummer looked embarrassed, and 
seemed to be trying to murmur something about 
an engagement. Then it came out, the whole, 
shocking truth ! Dear children, our poor-rich 
neighbour is so anxious to have Gladys begin to 


up in the Hills 167 

build up her social structure aright that, in spite 
of your being Inglesants, of old and honourable 
descent, since you are little flower merchants on 
the hills she doesn’t care very much to have Gladys 
cultivate an intimacy with you. It sounds a trifle 
crude, put that way, but that was the sum of poor 
Mrs. Plummer’s hesitations!” Miss Wrenn 
glanced at her hearers apprehensively. 

The Burroughs all straightened themselves 
into indignant attitudes, growing very wrathfully 
red. 

“Well, I like her impudence!” cried Cocky 
furiously. 

“And her idiocy!” supplemented Vere. 

“As though you — and Gladys Plummer!” Try- 
phena and Tryphosa spoke together, inarticulate 
from anger. 

Sibyl looked ready to die of mortification, and 
Rosamond’s face was flushed; she looked hurt and 
half ready to cry. 

But Anstiss merely said : “Pooh ! That’s noth- 
ing! That’s just silly!” And Gay, after a 
stunned moment of realising the extent of the 
joke, went off into a gale of laughter. “And to 
think,” she gasped, “that we have been trying not 


1 68 Daddy’s Daughters 

to feel ourselves a little, well, not quite the same 
sort of people as the Plummers !” 

To Miss Wrenn’s relief Daddy joined in 
Gay’s laughter; she had been afraid that, disliking 
the idea of the girls’ experiment with the flowers 
at first, Mrs. Plummer’s folly might annoy him 
into a relapse to his first dislike of it. But Daddy 
was capable of sustaining a position which he had 
taken, and the notion of any one’s considering 
Rosamond and Gaynor as undesirable was too 
extravagant for anything but laughter — Daddy 
was quite as proud of his daughters as were the 
daughters of him. 

So now he laughed, throwing back his hand- 
some head with the becoming look of pride he 
sometimes wore, and said : “The shortest cut to a 
patent of nobility is to look down on some one or 
something in this humourous world of ours ! Mrs. 
Plummer is finding her clues. Rosamond and 
Gay, isn’t it lucky? We can read ‘The Passing of 
Arthur’ then to-morrow, and we thought that we 
should have to wait till Friday! Will you join 
us, my merry neighbours? We should be hon- 
oured if Miss Winnie thought us worth while.” 

“Well, you’d better believe we’ll come!” said 


Down in the World 169 

Hale most sincerely. And Miss Wrenn answered 
more conventional!}' but not less heartily : “I shall 
be delighted, Stanley, if you will let me come.” 

The Inglesant children forgot their rebuff in 
the wonder of hearing Miss Wrenn use their 
father’s first name, and in the pleasure of the pros- 
pect of another afternoon at the court of the king 
whose greatness no one could question. 


CHAPTER XII 


A DOUBLE STAMPEDE 

R osamond and Oaynor were roommates, 
Sibyl and Anstiss spent their nights in soli- 
tary dignity, each with a room to herself. There 
were plenty of rooms in the great Inglesant house 
for its four little daughters to “spread themselves 
out thin,” as Gay put it, but the two elders pre- 
ferred each other’s companionship, even in the 
land of dreams. 

There was one noble great room furnished in 
massive mahogany more than a century old, in 
which the four usually got together for prepara- 
tions for bed. Rosamond stood over by the high 
bureau combing her fair hair like a Lorelei whose 
attraction was entirely beneficent. Gay sat on a 
low chair thoughtfully examining the lining of the 
shoe which she had just taken off, but nevertheless 
not seeing it. Sibyl sat before the tilted glass in 
the dressing table forgetting to braid the hair 
which she had shaken around her shoulders in 
^^o 


lyi 


A Double Stampede 

the critically approving scrutiny which she was 
giving to each feature of her pale little face. 
Anstiss, with strict attention to the business of 
getting ready for the night on which she was 
launched, was turning her stockings ready for the 
morning, drawing up her feet meanwhile upon 
the round of her chair, having a strong objection 
to the feeling of the Brussels carpet on their bare 
soles. 

“Well, there’s one thing certain,” said Gay, 
dropping the shoe and beginning to unbutton its 
mate, “it’s not pleasant, even though we don’t 
care much about Gladys.” 

“I should think nothing could be pleasant that 
was unpleasant,” said Rosamond, and then 
laughed at her own statement. “I mean,” she 
proceeded to explain, “it can’t be quite comfort- 
able to know anybody says unpleasant things. 
I’m afraid I care a lot to be liked.” 

“You’re liked a lot, if that’s what you mean,” 
said Anstiss, suspending her labours to listen to 
the conversation. 

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said Gay. “I 
don’t really care, but — well, it just shows me one 
thing!” she added, breaking off suddenly. 


172 


Daddy’s Daughters 

“And that is that I was right about your not 
selling those horrid flowers!” said Sibyl, dis- 
regarding the crystal chain which lay at her hand 
on the dressing table, the result of the family 
downfall. 

“Not one bit!” cried Gay quickly. “I should 
think Mrs. Plummer would be enough to make 
you wish you hadn’t seen it ihe way she did — I 
wouldn’t care to have been on that side! No; it 
shows me that we’re more in earnest about it than 
I thought we were. Of course I did propose the 
plan to try to be useful to my family, and Rosa- 
mond came into it for that reason, but after all it 
has been a sort of game. Now, somehow, Mrs. 
Plummer’s feeling as though it belittled us makes 
me feel as though it was something bigger — like 
a Cause, and that we had to fight for it ! I sup- 
pose I can’t make you understand, but I know 
what I mean.” 

“Yes, I do understand!” cried Rosamond 
quickly. “You mean that you are quite sure that 
we are really doing something very nice indeed, 
and if any one is foolish enough to think it makes 
us less nice, that for that very reason we had to 
stand by it the stronger, and to prove the dif- 


A Double Stampede 173 

ference between real standards and imitations. 
That’s fine of you, Gay, and just exactly like you.” 

“It strikes me ) ou must be just as fine, or you 
wouldn’t understaid,” teased Gay. “And what’s 
more, you can say it, and I can’t — any one would 
know you were ar author’s daughter, while I am 
a muddled-up disgrace to Daddy ! But that’s 
what I did mean, Rose-of-the-world ; thank you, 
m’am !” 

“Well, I don’t believe I see it,” said Sibyl in 
such a funny way that they all laughed ; they had 
not expected her to see it. “I think I like my nose 
better than Lily V/ard’s after all — the other day 
when she came to see me I thought I didn’t. 
And to-morrow I shall be able to take a real walk 
— doctor said so.” Sibyl turned away from the 
glass with an expression on her face that showed 
that its owner was very well satisfied with it as a 
whole, and not merely with its delicate, straight 
little nose. 

“Oh, don’t be such a goose, Sibyl !” protested 
Rosamond. “Come, girls, I’m ready to say good- 
night.” 

“Lucky thing on the whole that you do like 
your own nose better,” said Gay, following Rosa- 


/ 


174 Daddy's Daughters 

mond with a long yawn and a frank stretch as she 
arose. “Because you know when 

“ ‘ Said Aaron to Moses: 

Let’s cut off our noses, 

Said Moses to Aaron: 

'Tis the fashion to wear ’em.’ 

Perhaps even the crystal chain to boot wouldn’t 
have made Lily any more obliging.” With which 
delicate reminder of her reason for regarding 
flower-selling kindly Gay nodded good-night to 
foolish Sibyl and departed. 

Rosamond and Anstiss were the two who were 
to make the trip to the hills the next morning. 
Early as they were to start Tryphena and Try- 
phosa, under the escort of Hale Burroughs, came 
over before they got off. They looked excited, 
and though Hale wore his chronic smile there was 
that about him which suggested a perturbed mind. 

“Say, what do you think?’ he cried as soon as 
he came within Gay’s hearing; she was cutting 
some last sprays of mignonette for Rosamond to 
take with her. “They’ve all stampeded this time 
— went last night.” 

The Burroughs had been having a succession 
of servants since they came to Windsley, such a 


A Double Stampede 175 

rapid succession that Vere said that they gave the 
house the effect of a shoot-the-chute ; they came 
after one another so fast they made him dizzy. 

So Gay knew at once what Hale meant, before 
Tryphena added: “There’s no one left to grind 
one single coffee bean for us this morning.” 

“No, and that’s as much as any of us know how 
to do — I don’t believe we know how to grind two 
beans,” supplemented Tryphosa. 

However delightful the Burroughs family was 
proving as neighbours it was much too big and 
irregular in its habits to provide a paradise for 
servants. Gay privately half sympathised with 
the stampeders, while she realised that the 
stampede was pretty hard on the Burroughs, who 
were as helpless as infants when called upon to 
do for themselves. 

“I can grind at least three beans,” she said. 
“And I can make good coffee out of them after 
they are ground, if I do say it and so forth! 
Though the credit is really Mary Frances’; she 
has brought us up like our own grandmothers. 
I’ll tell you!” she added with a sudden inspira- 
tion. “Daddy wants to go off for a day’s fishing 
to-day; I heard him say so. We’ll leave Mary 


1 76 Daddy’s Daughters 

Frances to herself and Amos, and we’ll stampede 
the other way — over to your house. Rosamond 
and Anstiss can come when they get back, and in 
the meantime Sibyl and I will get dinner for you 
poor Crusoes in the desert.” 

“You’re mighty good!” exclaimed Hale grate- 
fully. “Vere went off on the early train — with- 
out his breakfast — to hunt up another batch of 
Fridays. We’ll have a jamboree!” 

“What sent off the whole lot? They’ve been 
going in ones all along,” said Gay. 

“Sure enough! We forgot to tell you!” the 
Tryals cried together. “Drusilla’s sick. She ate 
something that pretty near killed her, and she got 
as red as fire — had an eruption and all the symp- 
toms of something catching — but it isn’t, you 
know, or we wouldn’t have come over. Drusilla 
caught it in the pantry, and there’s no more left. 
We had the doctor, and he said it was all right — 
not catching, I mean. You wouldn’t think it was 
all right if you could have seen that particular 
Sillie last evening! So the whole shooting 
match ” 

“Shot!” Hale interrupted the twins, who had 
been pouring out this story together, each adding 


A Double Stampede 177 

a word here and there. “They stampeded on the 
late train last night, swearing they wouldn’t stay 
where there was scarlet fever; they seemed to 
think we were a hard enough family when we 
hadn’t fever.’’ 

“Or that we always were feverish, one way or 
another, and I guess that’s not far out of the way,” 
Tryphena said candidly. “If you’ll come over 
we’ll have the time of our lives.” 

“You always say that! And I believe you 
always have that,” laughed Gay. “Everything 
that happens is more fun for you than anything 
that has happened — I never saw such a crowd! 
Shall I come over now and get breakfast, or can 
you get along by yourselves? I’d have to come 
back for a while to help here. It makes it hard 
for Mary Frances to have two of us go off every 
morning, and Anstiss is equal to two herself.” 

“We’ll get on,” said Tryphosa. “We won’t try 
coffee. We’ve got some of that powdered choco- 
late that you stir into hot water, and which mustn’t 
be boiled- ” 

“Because if it were it wouldn’t taste kind of 
thin and raw, and that must be the right flavour, 
because the directions say to make it on the table,” 


1 /S Daddy’s Daughters 

continued Tryphena. “Yes, we’ll have that for 
breakfast — it will take about three-quarters of a 
ton for all of us, it takes so much for one cup, and 
we each like at least two cupfuls — and we have 
some other food in the house that isn’t raw. 
We’ll live till you come. What a duck you are to 
help us out !” 

“It’s because she’s a duck that she likes to float 
us,” Hale called back as they returned the way 
they had come. 

Daddy fell in with Gay’s plan readily when it 
was unfolded to him. He usually fell in readily 
with whatever his daughters wished to do, and 
this time their going off to help their neighbours 
chimed exactly with his own yearning for a day’s 
fishing. 

Rosamond and Anstiss promised to hurry old 
Gustavus Adolphus, if such a thing could be done, 
and to come over to the Burroughs’ as soon as 
they had left the horse with Amos after that 
hurrying home. Gay and Sibyl whisked through 
their home duties, and came smiling up through 
the hedge on the Burroughs’ side unexpectedly 
early. 

Mrs. Burroughs met them with her tawny hair 


A Double Stampede 179 

more than ever ruffled into curly ends, and her 
cheeks flushed. 

“Isn’t it ridiculous, Gay?” she called. “I 
haven’t a particle of sense about housework! I 
don’t know whether it’s time to put the meat in or 
not — and I can’t find the meat I” Gay and Sibyl 
joined in Tryphena and Tryphosa’s peal of 
laughter. “What can you mean, Mrs. Bur- 
roughs ?” asked Gay. 

“Just that; I can’t find the meat. We thought 
it must be in the ice box, but it wasn’t, and the 
door was open. Do you think it could have been 
stolen?” inquired Mrs. Burroughs. Her face 
was all wrinkles of amusement, however, as if a 
stolen dinner were just as satisfactory as an eaten 
one, and she immediately added : “Do you wonder 
that Colonel Burroughs said that it would never 
do to take us to the Philippines? He said we 
could never cope with the natives, and if we did 
cope with them that we should do away with all 
the commission’s hope of civilising them; he 
thinks we’re a scatter-brained family — he isn’t in 
the least scatter-brained. But I believe the Philip- 
pines would have been easier than this; at least 
there’d have been servants !” 


i8o Daddy’s Daughters 

“Maybe they’d be philopena servants, and come 
in pairs, which would have been convenient,” sug- 
gested Tryphena. 

“Like us,” added Tryphosa. “We’re philo- 
penas with a Philippine father.” 

“But you’re horribly inconvenient,” observed 
Cocky. 

“Oh, do stop !” cried Gay. “We came over to 
get dinner, not to listen to nonsense. We ought 
to find the meat. Is it — was it — a roast?” 

“Wouldn’t you call it a roast to lose your din- 
ner?” demanded Hale. 

“It was a roast, little Practicality,” said Mrs. 
Burroughs. “But it has disappeared as com- 
pletely as if it had been as light weight as the most 
thoroughly Frenched chop. It’s a mystery.” 

“Let’s hunt for it,” said Gay. 

“Where?” inquired Tryphosa. 

“Wait till I don my scarlet breeks and top- 
boots, and call out the dogs and wind my horn,” 
said Cocky. “If we’re going to hunt our meat 
for dinner I want to look like Sir Roger de 
Coverley, or some chap in Hugh Thompson’s 
illustrations.” 

“It always sounds so funny when one of you 


A Double Stampede i8i 

speak of something like that! You’re all such a 
queer crowd that it seems as if you couldn’t know 
about books,” remarked Sibyl. 

“Why, they’ve read a lot I” cried Gay, flushing 
with mortification the keener that she secretly 
shared Sibyl’s feeling. “Isn’t there such a thing 
as a still hunt ? Suppose we don’t go with hounds 
to-day I” 

'‘Go with hounds! Ride to hounds, run with 
hounds — for goodness’ sake, Gaynor, one would 
suppose you had never been used to the company 
of the gentry!” cried Cocky severely. “But a 
still hunt be it, though it grieves me sore not to 
ride out with a ‘Hark forward! Hark forward, 
tantivy !’ ” 

“Oh, you ridiculous Cocky !” cried his mother in 
high delight. “We do have such good, silly times 
here. Gay and Sibyl! No matter what goes 
wrong ” 

“We’re all right !” Hale finished for her. 

“How is Drusilla?” asked Gay. “We have 
good times too, no matter what happens, though 
we don’t make so much noise as you do, because 
we’re all girls.” 

“And more dainty girls,” said Tryphena. “Did 


1 82 Daddy’s Daughters 

mother’s saying we had silly times remind you of 
Brasilia ? Her twin is sitting with her. She 
feels better — castor oil is a good deal like ’Phosa 
and me, better than it seems when you first meet 
it. Drusilla took some — she tried to fight it off, 
but we held her fast — and now she is more grate- 
ful to us than she was at first.” 

Gay rippled with laughter, eyes and lips and all 
her face — she keenly enjoyed the Burroughs brand 
of fun. But she added: '‘Now do come! I’m 
sure some dog has stolen the meat, because I know 
you never would remember to watch one another, 
to see some one hadn’t left the cellar door open. 
Let’s hunt for it outside.” 

“I don’t want to find it, if you’re right !” cried 
Mrs. Burroughs. "I’d share my last crust with 
a hungry animal, but I don’t think I want to share 
what they leave of it.” 

"But this wasn’t your last crust, mater; it 
hadn’t had a chance to get a crust on it,” explained 
Cocky with an air of putting her right and an 
entirely new face on the matter. 

The searching party went out on the lawn. 
Nothing was in sight before them, but Hale ran 
around the house and they heard him calling from 


A Double Stampede 183 

the back : “There’s a dog over here — I guess our 
Pinkerton men Pinkertoned the thief all right.” 

They hastened around to Hale, and dimly saw a 
dog half hidden by some shrubs. As they rushed 
toward him they were surprised to see that he did 
not move. 

“He’s an anarchist dog, thinks he has a right to 
our property. My gracious. Gay, it’s your 
Trouble! Well, Pm shocked!” cried Cocky. 

“He never steals !” cried Gay indignantly. 

“No, but he seems to take,” said Cocky. 

“You don’t know that he has the meat,” said 
Sibyl. 

“He’s watching something,” said Hale. But 
as they came nearer they saw that a gaunt tiger 
cat lay stretched at full length on a limb of the 
tree beneath which Trouble was sitting, her tail 
moving slowly, her eyes narrowed, while one paw 
hung down exasperatingly, just out of the 
little dog’s reach. And Trouble had sat up 
on his hind legs, waving his paws appealingly, 
imploring the cat, by the one method which his 
human friends found irresistible, to come down 
where he could worry her. 

“What a hard-hearted cat not to come down 


184 Daddy’s Daughters 

and be caught !” cried Mrs. Burroughs as they all 
burst out laughing at the sight. 

‘‘He wouldn’t hurt her, but he does love to 
chase cats, unless they’re his own cats — he never 
bothers ours,” said Sibyl, hugging the little dog, 
who struggled, whining to get away, in her arms. 

“And here’s our meat! That cat stole it!” 
cried Tryphena, discovering the roast under the 
tree. “How in the world did she drag it so 
far?” 

“They’re strong. Poor beastie; she must be 
hungry! We don’t want the meat now; suppose 
we set it aside for the cat’s use, and adopt her! 
She needs a home,” proposed Mrs. Burroughs. 
“We will dine off of something nice which these 
Inglesant cooks of ours can make out of nothing.” 

“You encourage crime, mater; you’ll have peo- 
ple after you with statistics to prove you are up- 
setting government, or something,” said Cocky 
with an admiring look at the ruddy, round little 
woman, with the curly hair standing up all ways 
above her merry face. “However, I’m with you. 
We’ll take the meat, and you stay behind to catch 
your cat. Wait; I’ll cut you off a chunk for bait 
for her, then you’ll coax her down.” 


A Double Stampede 185 

When the youngsters got back to the kitchen 
they found the fire out. 

“There are few things worse than finding out a 
fire which you trusted/' said Gay as she raked and 
scraped at the grate. 

Cocky and Hale helped her, and they made a 
fire of chips so hot that it menaced the chimney. 
“We don’t need coals to boil potatoes and cook 
eggs — that’s all we can have, thanks to that person 
whom Trouble treed,” said Tryphosa, hunting 
around for the tablecloth. 

“We’re going to have raspberries from the 
garden — the Tryals are going to pick them — and 
cold, crisp lettuce, and waffles — I can make waf- 
fles so light that you can’t tell the hollows in them 
from the solid part that rises up between the 
diamonds and hearts and things,” said Gay, flying 
around madly. Yet there was such method in her 
madness that everything “went like clockwork,” 
and a dinner that was properly a luncheon, but a 
most proper luncheon, was served up in short 
order, so short that it had to wait twelve minutes 
by the clock for Rosamond and Anstiss to come 
to it. 

The new cat, adapting herself to improved con- 


1 86 Daddy’s Daughters 

ditions with the ease of her kind and its fitness for 
comfort, sat beside Mrs. Burroughs, reconciled to 
Trouble, who had been properly introduced to 
her, and who looked very much ashamed of 
his mistake when he was told that this was 
one of the cats which he was forbidden to 
chase. 

Drusilla came down in Cocky’s arms, looking 
pale and woe-begone, but on the highroad to re- 
covery and able to enjoy the nonsense flying 
around her, although she was doing penance for 
her recent indulgence on toast and what Tryphena 
called “suggested tea.” 

It really was all that they could do that after- 
noon for the entire party, except the younger 
twins, to get dishes washed — these inexperienced 
houseworkers, it seemed to Rosamond and Gay, 
must have borrowed pots and pans when their own 
gave out, there were so many to wash. And Gay 
carried off the Tryals to make beds and to dust 
the rooms upstairs, though these inconsequent 
twins protested against dusting as entirely un- 
necessary until Vere should bring out the next in- 
stalment of servants. 

“I shall bring you up to be neat,” said Gay 


A Double Stampede 187 

severely, and, groaning, the Tryals had to obey 
her orders. 

“I believe Fll learn to cook and bake and brew 
— like you !” cried Tryphosa, who had been watch- 
ing Gay and Rosamond with awe and admiration 
through their various performances. 

‘‘It’s nice to know, and nice to do once in a 
while,” said Rosamond as she came upstairs to 
see what was going on. “I wouldn’t not know 
what I know for anything, but if ever Daddy were 
rich — as he would be if he would publish that 
novel, we’re sure — then I’d spend one whole year 
without helping once in a thing about the house. 
But we can’t let Mary Frances do alone all that 
she has to do for us, of course.” 

“One good turn deserves to be turned over,” 
said Tryphena. “We’ll come over and help you 
as soon as we’ve learned enough not to be trials 
with an i instead of the y.” 

“Yes, because you saved the day — this day at 
least,” added Hale, who had come up too. 

“We’ll come and sew for you,” said Cocky, 
peering in from the hall. 


CHAPTER XIII 


PICKANINNY VERSUS AMOS 

T he chance to “turn over the good turn/’ as 
Tryphena expressed it, came unexpectedly 

soon. 

“There’s something at the chickens every 
night,” said Amos, coming into the meal room. 

Mary Frances was making raspberry jam, and 
Anstiss was sorting the berries for her. 

“Catch it,” said Mary Frances. 

“Yes, or ask it to come to tea and try that jam 
of yours,” said Amos sarcastically. “It comes in 
the night and I’ve an idea it don’t hanker after 
catching.” 

“You know Trouble or Pickaninny might get 
poisoned if you tried that,” said Anstiss, her 
meaning clearer than her expression. 

“No one ever knew of me putting poison 
around, Anstiss,” said Amos in an aggrieved tone. 
“I don’t approve of it. Well, I’ve got to set up all 
night, I guess; ’twon’t do to let it go on.” 

188 


Pickaninny versus Amos 189 

He sauntered over to where his gun hung, took 
it down, and looked long into the barrel, shutting 
one eye and screwing his face obliquely as he did 
so. 

“For goodness’ sake, Amos, don’t stand there 
squintin’ down that gun !” his wife protested. “It 
gives me the fidgets to see you! S’pose ’tisn’t 
loaded it might go off — I mean,” she added hastily 
as Amos grinned, “it might be loaded when you 
thought it wa’n’t. For the land’s sake, don’t let 
me see you fussin’ with it!” 

“If that ain’t every woman’s attitood toward a 
gun!” exclaimed Amos, enjoying a rare sense of 
superiority to his efficient wife. “She always 
thinks it’s the gun that’s her enemy, and she’s 
ready for hysterics when she sees a man handle 
one, but she’ll handle a whole box of cartridges 
herself ’sif they were wooden nutmegs! I guess 
she wants cleanin’; I’ll take her out and git her 
ready for to-night.” 

Amos departed with the gun to which he im- 
puted the pronoun of the sex that feared it, and 
that night he prepared for picket duty to lie in 
wait for the enemy. 

After the Inglesant house was in darkness, and 


190 Daddy’s Daughters 

Daddy as well as his daughters were sound asleep, 
Amos sat vigilant by the chicken house with ready 
weapon. 

The night was cloudy, with threatening thun- 
der-heads piled up in the southern sky, and ex- 
tending well over into the west. No enemy came, 
and Amos brought himself up abruptly several 
times from a deeper nod than before. He began 
to entertain serious thoughts of risking a later 
invasion, for it was a busy season, and Amos alone 
took all the care of the Inglesant Place, though the 
other estates around it required the services of two 
or more men, “and didn’t look one mite better!” 
Amos truthfully boasted. He got very tired in 
these long July days of haying, however, and he 
had just about decided that everybody concerned 
would be better off if he allowed himself some 
sleep that night when he saw a little creature 
creeping off like a shadow on the further side of 
the chicken house. 

Instantly he levelled his gun and dashed after it. 
It broke into a run, and he fired. He missed it, 
for the run became a gallop as the frightened 
animal fled for its life. 

It never occurred to Amos to doubt that he had 


Pickaninny versus Amos 191 

to deal with the creature which is such an ener- 
getic chicken thief, and is so unpopular under his 
own name and alive, but which death translates 
into polite society as Alaska sable. 

He pursued it as fast as his long legs could fol- 
low, and blazed away in the direction where he 
thought it ought to be. It was so dark — both the 
animal and the night — that Amos could not see his 
mark, except at intervals, when its elongated little 
body offered him another chance. 

If he had not been wrought up to the exclusive 
thought of killing the marauder Amos would 
never have forgotten that he had been making a 
new ice pond not far beyond the chicken house, 
by cutting out and digging a basin into which he 
had diverted the stream that flowed through the 
Inglesant Place by means of a dam further up. 
The new pond was full, but Amos never once 
thought of it — until he was reminded. And the 
way he was reminded was by plunging headlong 
into it. As he fell his foot struck against a great 
log which it had been all that Gustavus Adolphus 
could do to haul there in chains, and this log fell 
on Amos, pinning him down across his body as 
effectually as Captain Kidd’s treasure is buried. 


192 Daddy’s Daughters 

At first Amos could not realise his misfortune, 
but all the struggling and kicking which he could 
bring to bear on the log was of no more effect on 
it than were the ripples of the water. Then Amos 
could heardly realise his good fortune, for if this 
log had struck his head, or if it were his head 
which was submerged instead of his body, ‘'Mary 
Frances would be a widow in less’n thirty 
minutes,’^ he said to himself. “I guess there’s 
nothing for it but to stay here till mornin’ when 
they’ll hear me holler,” he further thought, know- 
ing that at that hour and from that spot his cries 
could not be heard. 

From the branch of a tree hanging over the 
bank came a plaintive mew. Amos heard it and 
mentally sat erect, though he could not move. 

“Pickaninny, Pickaninny!” he called, and the 
kitten answered him promptly. His voice was 
sorrowful, Amos fancied reproachful, though 
probably Pickaninny did not identify Amos in the 
water with the monster that had chased him and 
fired at him a short time before. 

“By ginger, it was Pickaninny!” exclaimed 
Amos aloud. “To think I blazed away at the 
children’s kitten ! Pickaninny, I ask your pardon 


Pickaninny versus Amos 193 

— ^honest, though, I think you got the best of me!' 
You can afford not to bear a grudge; you’re 
scared, but I’m goin’ to git some sort of spell if I 
lay here till some one comes.” For the town 
clock down on Windsley common, on the Congre- 
gational church, struck three, and Amos groaned 
in spirit as he realised that even Mary Frances 
would not appear before five. 

Gay was the first one to come down that morn- 
ing. She tried to think that she was not afraid 
of thunder showers, but when a heavy one rolled 
over her head she felt a strong suspicion that the 
childish desire which came over her to crawl into 
some very dark, very tight hole, was something 
uncommonly like fear. 

There had been a fearful thunder shower that 
morning about four, and though all the girls said 
they were not afraid they had done what they 
always did under these circumstances, had 
wrapped themselves up in whatever could be found 
most quickly and had gone in to sit in a row on 
the side of Daddy’s bed with their feet drawn up, 
like so many birds of varied plumage. 

After the shower had passed Rosamond, Sibyl, 
and Anstiss had gone back for another nap, but 


1 94 Daddy’s Daughters 

Gay dressed, put on her rubbers, and went out to 
enjoy the dawn with its fresh coolness washed 
fresher and cooler, and the sun coming up over the 
clouds which had passed eastward, in more than 
usual glory. 

“Come on. Trouble !” cried Gay, dancing out of 
the door, and snapping her fingers at the little dog 
who rushed to meet her shaking all over like a 
joyous snarl of wool. 

Trouble bounded ahead of her, and Gay called 
to him : “Where’s Pickaninny ? I haven’t seen 
Pickaninny since last night at tea. Trouble — find 
him !” 

Trouble uttered three short, crisp barks and 
bounded along, nose down to the ground, tail up 
and wagging, thus defining the difference between 
the two ends of his roly-poly body. 

He led Gay through the long grass which had 
not been cut at the rear of the house, but was al- 
lowed to grow to add to Gustavus Adolphus’ sup- 
plies, and Gay stood still to protest. “It’s all 
right as to my feet. Trouble, because I’ve on rub- 
bers, but what do you suppose my skirts will look 
like if I go through all this wet?” she demanded. 
Trouble did not heed her protest, but ran on to- 


Pickaninny versus Amos 195 

ward the new pond, and Gay, still standing 
hesitating, heard a voice call. 

“Who’s that?” she cried. 

“Hal — lo-O-O, Gay!” the voice cried. “It’s 
me, Amos ! Come help me !” 

“Where are you ?” shouted Gay, but she started 
at once, for Trouble bounded on with several 
sharp yelps. 

“In the pond!” shouted Amos back again, a 
reply so amazing that Gay halted for a moment 
before she flew over the ground faster than before. 

At the edge of the pond she stopped, and there, 
true enough, was Amos, looking blue and suf- 
fering under the great log. 

Pickaninny came down the tree, slipping and 
swinging around as he hurried, recognising Gay. 
He was wet too, having been out through the 
shower, and he mewed sadly. 

“What in all this world ” Gay began, but 

did not finish; she stood staring at Amos in dumb 
bewilderment. 

“I chased Pickaninny there, thought he was a 
polecat after the chickens,” said Amos. “Fired at 
him too, but lucky I missed him! I forgot all 
about this pond and I run plumb into it, and some- 


196 Daddy’s Daughters 

how this great log tumbled on me, and pinned me 
fast. I’ve been here since three o’clock, so you’d 
better git me out. Gay.” 

“My goodness, Amos!” exclaimed Gay, cud- 
dling and comforting wet Pickaninny. “I’ll have 
to get some one to help me. You wait here till I 
come back.” 

Amos chuckled. “If I wouldn’t have to wait 
for you. Gay, I’d have been out long ago; I can’t 
move,” he said. “It ’ll take too long to go hunt 
up men, and wait for ’em to git dressed — I guess 
I’ve been here long enough already to have some 
sort of sickness. Can you get out Gustavus 
Adolphus, and find the chains in the barn, and 
lead the horse here — keep on his halter? If you 
could I’d slip the chains around the end of this 
log and Gustavus could haul it off me, and I’d 
come out myself — I don’t need help except to take 
this paper weight off me.” 

Gay laughed. “Of course I can, Amos! I’ll 
have Gustavus Adolphus here in a few minutes.” 
She started off, and Amos called after her : 
“Chains on the floor in a heap, right hand of door 
— big door !” 

Gay nodded, and it really was a very short time 


Pickaninny versus Amos 1 97 

before she came back, riding Gustavus Adolphus 
as the children had ridden him, bare-backed, ever 
since they were big enough to be held on the tall 
horse, and with the chains clanking over his sides 
where she had hung them. 

Gay held out the ends to Amos, who slipped 
them around the big log. “That hi do,” he said 
after a moment. “They don’t need to be very 
fast; if the horse ’ll just swing it off me I can get 
up. Lead him up. Gay. Little to the right! 
That’s it I George Henry, that hurts a body ! Go 
ahead! There! She’s moving! Now the 
left — gee, there ! Straight ahead ! Hie, it’s 
off!” 

Gay had obeyed the submerged Amos’ direc- 
tions, and she felt the lurch with which the log 
rolled off the poor man’s chest into the water. 
Gustavus Adolphus stopped when she bade him 
and looked around, probably thoroughly amazed 
to see Amos coming up out of the water from 
which no previous experience had led the old 
horse to look for anything larger than an able- 
bodied frog or turtle. 

Amos came out of his long soaking with many 
groans and much difficulty of motion. 


Daddy’s Daughters 


198 

“It ’ll be rheumatism at the very least,” he said. 
“I guess Pickaninny’s got the best of me this time, 
if I did try to pepper him, not knowin’.” 

“You go into the house; I’ll take Gustavus 
Adolphus back,” said Gay. “Mary Frances is 
probably down by this time, and she’ll give you 
something hot to take.” 

“She’ll have a conniption fit,” said Amos, limp- 
ing off with one hand holding one painful hip, 
and the other hand rubbing down a knee that 
would not bend. 

When the Inglesants came down it was to face 
the unheard-of problem of getting on without 
Amos — for the day; none of them had the least 
idea how serious were to be the consequences of 
this misdirected vigil of his. 

“I can feed Gustavus Adolphus, and I can har- 
ness, but when it comes to taking care of the 
stable, and currying and all that — I don’t know !” 
Gay said, looking dubious. 

“Hardly, my dear !” remarked Daddy. “I will 
try to do all that, but I never had enough liking 
for out-of-doors work to learn it, and I’m afraid 
Gustavus Adolphus will sigh for Amos.” 

“The horse isn’t the main thing,” said Amos, 


Pickaninny versus Amos 199 

holding his head between his hands as he drooped 
by the kitchen fire, his teeth chattering in spite of 
its heat and the warmth of a July morning, which 
did not promise to be cooled by the electricity of 
the night. 

“If those Burroughs boys ’’ began Rosa- 

mond. 

“Could work with some one to show them!’’ 
Mary Frances eagerly continued. “You see Amos 
cut the hay up in the meadows yesterday, and it’s 
got to be spread this morning to dry after the 
shower, and then it’s got to be brought in this 
afternoon.” 

“I’ll ask them !” cried Gay, starting toward the 
door. “They’ll think it’s fun ! And we girls can 
help with the Burroughs girls I” 

“I’ll show ’em how,” said Mary Frances. “But 
you girls can’t help that way — you’ll have to take 
my place in the house. I shouldn’t be surprised if 
Amos ’d want some nursing,” she added, dropping 
her voice out of regard to his presence, though he 
could hear quite as well as when she spoke 
louder. 

“Let me help you upstairs, Amos,” said Daddy, 
as Gay flitted out of the door with a lightness 


200 Daddy's Daughters 

of movement to which her heart did not respond. 
She looked back over her shoulder to see 
Daddy supporting poor Amos toward the 
stairs. 

“Dear me!” she thought, noting how slowly 
they moved. “I never once thought of what 
would happen here if Amos and Mary Frances 
gave out I” 

The Burroughs hailed her proposition to help 
with the hay with a glee hardly repressed by the 
necessity of appearing sympathetic to Gay’s mani- 
fest depression. 

“You see we haven’t a farm, so there are no 
farmers on the place, and yet it’s a big place and 
Amos has to do a lot of farming. We have 
always said that we lived in a way that wasn’t 
farming and wasn’t landed-proprieting ! It’s 
rather bad!” Gay explained; her lively face was 
overcast. “But I never once thought that Amos 
could give out — it’s like trying to walk on the 
walls because the floor’s gone — it makes me dizzy. 
And he may have some awful fever, or something, 
after such a long soaking chill.” 

“No, he won’t,” said Tryphosa with the com- 
forting assurance of a whole college of surgeons. 


Pickaninny versus Amos 201 

‘‘What about going up to the hotels this morn- 
ing?’’ 

“Oh, I never thought of that!” cried Gay. 
“We can’t go of course.” 

“Then you’ll disappoint the people; you say 
they are all so nice and look for you, and say they 
count on seeing you on your day in each place,” 
said Tryphena. 

“Yes, I know,” said Gay. “I’m sorry, but it 
can’t be helped.” 

“You wouldn’t let us go in your place?” sug- 
gested Tryphosa, blushing. “Priscilla and I 
would go, or Hale and I, if you wouldn’t be afraid 
to trust Gustavus Adolphus to us.” 

“Why, of course as to that, Gustavus Adolphus 
would take care of you — he doesn’t need taking 
care of! And you are very, very good, Try- 
phosa! If you think you wouldn’t mind ” 

hesitated Gay. 

“Now I’ll tell the truth!” cried Tryphosa. 
“We have been just bursting to go with you ever 
since you started. We think it must be great fun, 
and such a pretty sort of business! We have a 
perfectly plebeian love for business! I think 
Tryphena and I will some day have a shop, with 


202 Daddy's Daughters 

a little bell on the door, and live in the back. We 
think we get the taste from our grandfather — the 
one who named the boys out of American history 
— ^because he was a most successful business man, 
and all the rest of our relations on both sides know 
how to spend money better than to make it. So 
you will let us go? Oh, you duck, you dandy, 
dimpling, dearest, dovey duck ! We’re just crazy 
to go! Which hotel is it to-day?” 

“The Sugawnee, where Mrs. Hardtwitt is,” 
said Gay with a slight deepening of the cloud on 
her brow; she had come to look forward to her 
interviews with the eccentric wife of the great 
publisher, with whom her acquaintance was ripen- 
ing into a friendship on both sides, although Mrs. 
Hardtwitt had not yet fulfilled her promise to 
come to see Gay’s beautiful old home and learn to 
know her beloved Daddy. 

“I must go back,” Gay added, throwing off her 
regret that she must lose this trip to the Sugawnee. 
“You are the best neighbours an afflicted family 
ever had !” 

“Except the ones on your side of the hedge,” 
suggested Mrs. Burroughs. 

“We’ll be over this afternoon to be sweet Maud 


Pickaninny versus Amos 203 

Mullers,” Cocky said with his head foolishly on 
one side. 

‘And Priscilla and I will be over in half an hour 
to go as flower maidens,” Tryphosa rapturously 
called after Gay. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE SOLEMN BUSINESS OF HAY- 
MAKING 

I T seemed queer to the assembled Inglesants to 
see Giistavus Adolphus departing under the 
guidance of other girls when, later, Tryphosa and 
Priscilla started off with the flowers. Not having 
a horse of her own, Tryphosa enjoyed her brief 
authority and kept making suggestions with the 
reins which Gustavus Adolphus was inclined to 
resent, being accustomed to the slack rein of his 
independence in hands of old acquaintance. 

At the Sugawnee even Tryphosa’s dauntless 
spirit was somewhat appalled by the array of crisp 
shirt-waisted, ruffled, and starched ladies on the 
broad piazza. A shrill voice reached her ears 
saying : ‘‘Here come our lovely little flower 
girls !’’ But at the same instant two long, slender 
legs in black stockings attached to a small boy 
waiting near the entrance sped up the driveway 


204 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 205 

ahead of Gustavus Adolphus, and their owner 
shouted vociferously : “Mamma, mamma, it ain’t 
ours ; it’s another one and she’s kinder red- 
headed!” 

Priscilla reddened with anger, but Tryphosa 
laughed. “That’s all right, Sillie,” she whispered. 
“I am another one, and my hair is tawny — like 
mother’s and Hale. What’s the difference ? He’s 
only a little snip, and facts are facts.” 

Some one in a khaki-coloured linen so gentle- 
manly of cut that Tryphosa at once recognised its 
wearer as Mrs. Hardtwitt, from Gay’s descrip- 
tion, came toward the steps. 

The other inmates of the Sugawnee seemed to 
admit Mrs. Hardtwitt’s right of discovery in the 
flower maidens, her prior acquaintance with them 
at the sanitarium, for no one followed her to greet 
them. 

“What has happened to Rosamond and Gay and 
comfortable little Anstiss?” demanded Mrs. 
Hardtwitt at once. 

“Nothing has happened to them, Mrs. Hard- 
twitt,” said Tryphosa, handing the basket of 
flowers to Priscilla, who had jumped out. “But 
Amos Reddesh spent last night in the pond and 


2 o 6 Daddy’s Daughters 

he’s pretty sick, so the girls couldn’t come. We’re 
their neighbours, and we took their place.” 

“Spent the night in the pond!” repeated Mrs. 
Hardtwitt, while everybody within hearing 
laughed. “Was he trying to get water lilies for 
the children to bring here? What a singular 
place to choose for a lodging I” 

“He didn’t choose it; he forgot it was there and 
fell into it, and a big log held him fast,” explained 
Tryphosa. “They think he may be very sick in- 
deed.” 

“And I know how entirely the Inglesant family 
depend upon him and his wife,” said Mrs. Hard- 
twitt. “The children have told me. I think I 
shall make my long-deferred call upon them this 
afternoon and offer my services. Now you — 
what’s your name ?” 

“Tryphosa Burroughs, and Priscilla, her sis- 
ter,” said Tryphosa. 

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Mrs. Hardtwitt. “I 
am sure that they call you ’Phosa. So, ’Phosa, 
ril tell you what you are to do. You are to let the 
people who are impatiently waiting to get at you 
buy all your flow^ers — Rosamond and Gay never 
take any away from the Sugawnee — and you are 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 207 

to allow me to give Gustavus Adolphus into the 
charge of the stable here, and you and Priscilla 
are to lunch with me, and drive me down 
after luncheon to see my Inglesant girls. Do 
you know, I am very fond of those dear 
youngsters ?” 

“So are we; you’d just about worship them if 
you knew them as we do — they’re nicer than any 
other girls in all this world !” cried Tryphosa with 
such evident sincerity that Mrs. Hardtwitt at once 
gave her a niche in her regard for the warm- 
hearted, true-hearted girl that she was. “But we 
can’t stay up here all that time, thank you; the In- 
glesants would be sure to think Gustavus Adol- 
phus had run away.” 

“Really!” exclaimed Mrs. Hardtwitt. “Would- 
n’t that be a pleasant illusion, just for a short 
time ? And you needn’t thank me, because it is for 
my own sake that I ask you — as a favour, you see. 
And so you must see also, that you can’t refuse 
me. I can take Priscilla — didn’t you say ? — Pris- 
cilla on my knee, and we shall go down most 
comfortably, all together after lunch. It is quite 
decided, for I am always quite decided; so be 
about your errand. Miss Tryphosa — you don’t 


2o8 Daddy’s Daughters 

think your mother will be troubled about you, do 
you?’’ 

‘‘No, indeed ! Mother has seven of us, and she 
knows pretty well that we always turn up. Seven 
days in the week and seven Burroughs equals 
about forty-nine scrapes a week, allowing each of 
us a scrape a day. My brother Vere computed it 
once. So you see mother is used to our being in 
scrapes and coming out. Besides, mother has 
gone to town to-day and taken my sister; mother 
is after a servant and ’Phena a suit — both went to 
be suited. Cocky said.” Tryphosa delivered this 
speech rapidly, and Mrs. Hardtwitt looked amazed 
at its end. “What an extraordinary child you 
are !” she laughed. “Who is Cocky ?” 

“My brother, John Hancock,” said Tryphosa 
demurely. 

“Who had the naming of your family?” asked 
Mrs. Hardtwitt. 

“Our grandparents,” said Tryphosa. Pris- 
cilla pulled her sleeve, and Mrs. Hardtwitt saw 
the motion and turned around. 

“I won’t keep your waiting any longer,” she 
said over her shoulder at her fellow-guests waiting 
for their bi-weekly blossoms. “And to be fair I 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 209 

will let everybody select to-day before I do. Try- 
phosa and Priscilla, I am going to have Gustavus 
Adolphus put into the stable, and order him 
brought around at quarter after two.’* 

Tryphosa was delighted that Mrs. Hardtwitt 
persisted in her arrangement, and set about dis- 
posing of the Inglesant flowers in the highest of 
spirits. She felt perfectly sure that the girls 
whom she represented would imagine all sorts of 
accidents had befallen her and Priscilla, but she 
characteristically refused to worry over their 
worry, and proceeded to have that “time of her 
life” which was repeated all her life long. 

“The flowers went off like icicles,” she told Gay 
and Rosamond later, “and all that I had to do was 
to hand them out and make change.” 

It was great fun lunching in the big dining hall 
of the Sugawnee, the finest of the hill hotels. 
Priscilla was a tiny bit shy, but Tryphosa waxed 
more and more excited, and Mrs. Hardtwitt found 
herself learning a great deal of the Inglesants. 
Driving down Tryphosa continued her chatter, 
just the least bit subdued by a hint from keen-eyed 
Mrs. Hardtwitt. “Gay is very lively and jolly,” 
she had remarked, “but she never is in the least 


210 


Daddy’s Daughters 

free, nor too ready to make acquaintances. She 
has a great deal of dignity and reserve for a girl 
of fourteen, and for such a fun-loving little 
maiden.’' 

Tryphosa had been quick to see that this was 
a kindly warning not to go too far. 

“I always do get carried off,” she said to herself 
honestly. ‘‘I suppose it’s my red hair,” she added 
aloud to Mrs. Hardtwitt, “but when I’m where 
there’s a lot going on, I talk and laugh just as I 
did on the piazza after luncheon. Gay has a 
balance wheel in her head, but all my wheels are 
fly-wheels.” 

Mrs. Hardtwitt laughed. “They seem to fly in 
very wholesome, kindly, witty ways, ’Phosa,” 
she said. “I used to be a harum-scarum girl my- 
self; I don’t believe I ever could have kept the 
limits defined as well as Gaynor does. What 
about this Daddy of hers, of whom the children 
are so proud? They are such thorough little 
gentlewomen that I wonder about him.” 

“So is he,” cried Tryphosa eagerly, and did not 
see why Mrs. Hardtwitt smiled. “He’s an author, 
you know.” 

“An author !” exclaimed Mrs. Hardtwitt. 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 21 1 

“Oh, if they didn’t tell you I ought not to have 
said a word!” cried Tryphosa penitently. “He’s 
secretly an author; he won’t publish a word, he 
won’t so much as let Rosamond or Gay peep at 
his novel. Please don’t remember I told 1” 

“Not so easy for a publisher’s wife to forget, 
Tryphosa. However, as far as any result of tell- 
ing goes it shall be as if I did not know. How in- 
teresting to find a man courting oblivion in an age 
of notoriety! And what an interesting family 
this is to which you are taking me, with its rare 
little daughters, its Reddeshes, its Trouble, and its 
Gustavus Adolphus!” Mrs. Hardtwitt looked 
positively elated at the prospect of her call. 

“And its beautiful colonial house, with the 
furniture that mother says makes the tenth com- 
mandment beyond the power of less than a saint 
to keep. And the loveliest old garden, all box 
borders and old-time flowers! Oh, really it’s no 
wonder the girls are nice,” said Tryphosa 
fervently. 

“I can’t imagine how I have let so long a time 
slip by without accepting the girls’ invitation!” 
said Mrs. Hardtwitt. “Sit back further, Pris- 
cilla; you are not comfortable on the very tip of 


212 Daddy’s Daughters 

my knee bone — and neither am I holding you 
there/’ 

Gay came flying around the house to greet T ry- 
phosa, crying: “What was it? What happened? 
Rosamond said Gustavus broke his leg, and I said 
you had run off with the money. Why, Mrs. 
Hardtwitt !” She stopped short at the unexpected 
apparition of her friend, who dismounted nimbly 
from the buggy and kissed Gay affectionately. 

“I am glad to see you, my dear, if you are not 
glad to see me,” she said. “Is this the Sibyl whom 
I do not know?” Sibyl had run after Gay, and 
stood gazing at Mrs. Hardtwitt with eyes that ap- 
praised her linen collar and little square black bow 
at less value than they were worth. 

“This is Sibyl,” said Gay. “Will you come 
into the house, or will you go up to the meadow 
where the others are ? Have you lunched ? You 
will have a better time in the meadow; all the 
Burroughs boys are there, and Drusilla, and ” 

Gay clapped her hand over her own mouth to 
press back words which she must not utter, and 
Mrs. Hardtwitt said: “We have lunched at the 
Sugawnee. It’s entirely my fault that your agents 
delayed. I insisted on being brought back to call 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 213 

upon you, and to ask if there was anything that I 
could do for you in your present plight ? How is 
your Amos?” 

“Oh dear; he’s sick enough,” sighed Gay, all the 
light brought by their coming fading from her 
face. “The doctor can’t tell how bad it will be, 
but anything that ails Amos is bad enough. 
Mary Frances will have to nurse him, so we girls 
must scramble through the house part of things 
without her — I’m sure I don’t know how we can 
scramble through outside things without poor 
Amos !” 

“We shall find a way! Take me to the 
meadow. Gay, and live up to your name a little 
better. I had no idea you could look so solemn !” 
Mrs. Hardtwitt said. 

Sibyl and Priscilla fell behind as Gay and Try- 
phosa escorted Mrs. Hardtwitt up the slight rise 
at the back of the house toward the fields which 
were given over to hay raising for the benefit of 
Gustavus Adolphus. 

Daddy sat at one side, under the shade of a 
group of maples, looking as if he were enjoying 
himself as much as the boys, who were, all three, 
piling up the hay into heaps ready against Gusta- 


214 Daddy’s Daughters 

vus Adolphus’ coming with the wagon to haul it 
to the barn. 

Mary Frances had taken the horse the moment 
Tryphosa dropped the reins and had led him off 
to effect the change of vehicles. 

Vere and Cocky and Hale had bought the three 
largest and coarsest farmer’s hats to be purchased 
for money, and were raking hay to the accom- 
paniment of their flapping brims, which looked as 
though they might supply the lack of air that sul- 
try afternoon. 

Drusilla sat flat on the ground in the very 
middle of the field with Anstiss beside her, and 
between them was — 

'‘What’s that? Oh, Hale, what’s that?” cried 
Tryphosa, precipitating herself toward this allur- 
ing object. Hale grinned, pushing back his hat 
to show it. 

“O hail, indeed!” he said. “That’s Noddy 
Longears, our donkey.” 

“Our newest donkey, but not our greatest don- 
key,” added Vere as Tryphosa seized the tiny 
animal around the neck. “Go slow, ’Phosa; you 
might swamp him.” 

“Is he really ours?’^ cried Tryphosa raptur- 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 2 1 5 

ously. As to Priscilla, she dropped beside 
Anstiss and her twin merely sighing : 
‘‘Honest?” 

“Tell about him,” ordered Gay. “Oh, I for- 
got ! Mrs. Hardtwitt, this is my dearest Daddy. 
Daddy, Mrs. Hardtwitt came down with Thosa 
to see us.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Daddy, getting on his 
feet hastily; he had not seen their guest till that 
moment. “It is a great pleasure to be able to 
thank Mrs. Hardtwitt for her friendship to the 
children.” 

“It is a great pleasure to hear you say that the 
children recognise my feeling for them as friend- 
ship,” said Mrs. Hardtwitt. She laid aside her 
abrupt trick of speech, and responded suavely to 
Daddy’s grace and graciousness. “Where is 
Rosamond?” 

“Taking Mary Frances’ place beside Amos 
while that overburdened woman brings Gustavus 
Adolphus into the field,” said Daddy. “This is 
the shadiest spot and the pleasantest; will you 
rest under our maples, Mrs. Hardtwitt?” 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Hardtwitt, looking as 
if she longed to suggest that Daddy might harness 


2i6 


Daddy’s Daughters 


and bring out the horse himself. She seated her- 
self in the spot Daddy indicated, and mercifully 
said for the benefit of Tryphosa and Priscilla: 
“Now do let us hear about that most minute 
donkey !” 

“This is Vere Burroughs, Cock — Hancock 
Burroughs, Hale Burroughs, and Drusilla, Pris- 
cilla’s twin,” interposed Gay hastily. “Now, tell 
about Noddy, boys.” 

“Some rough chaps had him,” began Vere, half 
to his sisters, 'half to Mrs. Hardtwitt. “They were 
lathering — beating him, and we three Revolution- 
ary heroes couldn’t stand for that ; if only for our 
names’ sake we couldn’t allow taxation without 
representation. So, as the donkey didn’t seem 
able to represent himself we represented to the 
boys that we’d most everlastingly finish them up 
if they didn’t drop their sticks. We argued it, 
and it ended in our buying Noddy Longears for 
five dollars. They yelled at us when they had got 
almost around the corner that we’d wish we’d let 
them keep him and beat him; that he wouldn’t go, 
no matter what happened.” 

“But he’s gone so far,” said Cocky. “We ex- 
plained to him that we were his benefactors, and 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 2 1 7 

he mustn’t balk at such as we. I guess he’s going 
to do his part.” 

“And Vere said he would read poetry to him 
every day, real moving poetry,” added Drusilla. 

“If we feed him up he’ll go. He was so thin 
he didn’t dare risk breaking,” said Hale. 

“We thought maybe you girls would be 
pleased,” observed Vere. 

Tryphosa was embracing the donkey in such 
ecstasy that there seemed good reason to feel that 
this was not a mistake. 

“Will mother like having him?” asked Priscilla, 
not less enchanted, but more quiet than her elder. 

“In a family such as ours what’s another don- 
key, more or less ?” demanded Cocky. 

Daddy arose smiling at Mrs. Hardtwitt’s mani- 
fest joy in these exuberantly joyous youngsters. 
“Gay dear,” he said, “Mary Frances is coming 
with Gustavus Adolphus in the big wagon, but I 
see Miss Wrenn turning in the gate. Shall not 
you and I take Mrs. Hardtwitt with us to meet 
her, and make her comfortable in the cool of the 
house ?” 

“To tell the truth, I want very much to see the 
house, which I hear is so beautiful, though I 


21 8 


Daddy’s Daughters 


should like more than most things to stay with 
this jolly crowd,” said Mrs. Hardtwitt, getting up 
and brushing off her skirt with her stiff, gentle- 
manly movement of the arm. 

Gay and Daddy bore her off. The last they 
saw of the nonsensical Burroughs, Hale was 
gravely loading Noddy’s diminutive cart with an 
armful of hay preparatory to his following tall 
Gustavus Adolphus when the great wagon should 
be loaded. 

“Did you ever see such funny things as they 
are ?” sighed Gay. “Not one of them can possibly 
use that donkey cart — it’s only big enough for a 
child of five, but it never once crosses their minds 
to mind that ! And they’ll get more good out of 
Noddy Longears than if they could use him!” 

In the library, and with Miss Wrenn added to 
the party. Gay and Rosamond, who came down to 
welcome Mrs. Hardtwitt, were delighted to see 
how beautifully their new friend and Daddy got 
on together. In the republic of books they were 
both citizens, and they both loved pictures hardly 
less than books. Daddy forgot that he disliked 
women of masculine appearance, and Mrs. Hard- 
twitt forgot that she had been inclined to suspect 


The Solemn Business of Haymaking 2 1 9 

Daddy of being helpless and self-indulgent, of let- 
ting others bear his burdens. She began to un- 
derstand the girls’ lovable Daddy, and that he 
could not be other than he was. 

When she arose to go she had solved the 
problem of existing without Amos until he should 
be well. There was a man whom she did not need 
in her employ at the Sugawnee, she said, sent up 
by Mr. Hardtwitt to look after the saddle horse 
which she had not yet acquired. Him she would 
send down to help on the Inglesant Place until 
Amos could resume his work. There was noth- 
ing else to do but to accept gratefully an offer so 
welcome. Mrs. Hardtwitt took her departure in 
the carriage which came down from the hotel to 
fetch her back, leaving lightened hearts behind 
her. 

When Mary Frances was told that Mrs. Hard- 
twitt was to supply a man who would let Amos 
feel free to be as ill as he wanted to be, with no un- 
fulfilled tasks on his mind, she dropped into the 
kitchen rocking chair with a sigh of profound 
relief. 

‘T didn’t like her tie, nor the way her waist was 
cut coatish, not a mite, and I was dreadful put out 


220 Daddy’s Daughters 

by her makin’ Tryphosa stay up there, keepin’ the 
horse so long when we wanted him, but I guess 
’twas all right, and Fm sure Fm obliged to her, 
for my part. You can’t always tell providences 
when you see ’em; though for part I never did 
like shoes with soles stickin’ out around ’em,” she 
said, reserving her free-born American right to 
criticise in the midst of gratitude that went deep. 


CHAPTER XV 


A LOAN AND BORROWED PLUMES 

I T’S too good to be true,” said Rosamond, 
looking out of the dining-room window. Be- 
fore her stood a slender bottle half emptied of its 
olive oil, the vinegar cruet, and a lemon ; the yel- 
low-labelled mustard box and the old-fashioned 
salt cellar were pushed back, for Rosamond was 
making mayonnaise dressing, and the stage of dry 
ingredients was past. 

Gay, at the side of the table, all done up in an 
immense bibbed gingham apron of Mary Frances’, 
was polishing silver which she gave over to 
Anstiss, who sat opposite to her, similarly attired, 
for a final rinse in hot water. Gay’s eyes fol- 
lowed Rosamond’s and rested on a rubicund giant 
of a man who was rolling the lawn mower over the 
lawn, looking very much as Gustavus Adolphus 
might have looked if he had tried to play with a 
ball, after the fashion of Pickaninny. 


221 


222 


Daddy’s Daughters 


Daddy sat over by the window in a leather easy 
chair, enjoying the children’s activity with an 
amused smile that seemed to hint that the silver 
would have cleaned itself, and the mayonnaise 
would have beaten itself faultlessly smooth if they 
had not been taken seriously. 

“It’s precisely good enough to be true — for us,” 
he said. “But there’s not another family any- 
where which would have such a plum as Malone 
is dropped into its mouth when it was starving.” 

“Plum, Daddy-dear? Malone is not less than 
a golden pumpkin,” said Rosamond. 

“That’s only because you have the fairy- 
godmother-thought in your mind,” said Daddy. 

“Mrs. Hardtwitt has lent us something better 
than a coach. Malone is the coachman, and for 
all I know he is the prince. It is really wonderful 
the way we slip out of our tight places.” 

“Wasn’t it lucky that we took our flowers to the 
hills this summer?” cried Gay. 

“Not only did it give us Mrs. Hardtwitt, but 
only look here, Daddy !” 

She ran off and ran back with the gold-banded 
teapot from the kitchen closet, and poured the 
results of their blossoming scheme into her lap 



Fifty-three Dollars and Eighty-five Cents. 





4 





A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 223 

She smoothed out the bills lovingly, and laid 
them on one knee. Then she scooped up handfuls 
of loose silver, and laid it in assorted piles on the 
table at her left hand — half-dollars, quarters, 
dimes, and five-cent pieces. Then she counted 
them. 

“How much do you suppose she cried trium- 
phantly. 

“A hundred?” asked Sibyl, who had come in 
and was leaning, with both arms folded, on the 
back of Gay’s chair. 

“No, indeed! We’ve been doing it only six 
weeks — that’s thirty-six days. We’ve fifty-three 
dollars and eighty-five cents. I think that’s a 
lot!” Gay looked delighted and her voice rang 
out with a happy trill. 

“We may have a hundred by the time we stop,” 
said Rosamond hopefully. “We shall have 
flowers straight up to chrysanthemum-time.” 

“Aren’t chrysanthemums flowers?” asked An- 
stiss. 

“No; they’re characters,” said Gay quickly. 

“What sort of character^. Gay ?” asked Daddy, 
with his smile of delight in his daughters’ clever- 


ness. 


2 24 Daddy’s Daughters 

Gay considered. ‘They are high and mighty 
princes who are also wise men — like the magi,” 
she said at last slowly, trying to define her feeling 
for the pungent blossoms. “They are clad in gold 
and white, but they keep strength in their hearts 
that doesn’t let them give themselves up to splen- 
dour only — they even remember bitterness.” 

Daddy straightened himself, sitting erect and 
regarding Gay with a keenly alert look, as if he 
were studying her in a new light. She laughed at 
herself, and fell to poking the money back into the 
banded teapot, quite unconscious of having be- 
trayed cleverness rather beyond her girlish quick- 
ness of wit. 

“That was excellent, Gaynor,” he said. “It is 
at once pretty fable and accurate description. I 
may read you The Novel after all !” 

Instantly half-dollars, quarters, dimes, and 
nickels flew in all directions as Gay sprang to her 
feet and rushed over to take Daddy around the 
neck in an embrace that threatened the hopes of 
The Novel’s ever being finished. 

“Oh, will you, will you, Daddy? Oh, please, 
please do! I’ll say clever things for you all day 
and all night if you only will I And I’ll be every- 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 225 

thing you want me to be, and never do anything 
you don’t want me to do. I am dying to hear The 
Novel, and it makes me perfectly sick to think 
you won’t have it published ! I want all the world 
at your feet, my Daddy !” Gay poured forth her 
plea so fast that Daddy had no chance to beg her 
to release his neck and let him survive to finish 
The Novel. He unclasped her fingers and gasped 
tragically, with exaggeration of his suffering. 

‘‘Gaynor,” he murmured faintly, ‘fif you must 
slay me spare little Anstiss the remembrance of 
the spectacle of her father choked by his unnatural 
daughter! And The Novel lacks — it isn’t 
finished.” 

'‘But it is almost done!” cried Rosamond ex- 
citedly. “You started to say what it lacked. 
Daddy, how near is it to being done?” 

“It lacks one chapter,” said Daddy, and the 
girls’ excitement seemed to have leaped to him. 
For ten years he had worked over this novel; there 
was not a time in the lives of Rosamond and 
Gaynor when they had not known that Daddy’s 
days were full of it. To think of its being finished 
thrilled them all. 

Gay stood suddenly quieted, looking down at 


226 


Daddy’s Daughters 

Daddy. “Oh, Daddy!” she said. “One chapter, 
and then — done! Why, it has been almost al- 
ways, hasn’t it?” 

Daddy understood. “I have rewritten it three 
times,” he said. “I began it a year after your 
mother died.” He arose quickly and went away. 

Rosamond and Gay gazed at each other, Sibyl 
smiled triumphantly, but Anstiss looked fright- 
ened. “The Novel is almost like another daugh- 
ter,” said Gay. “I feel as though something had 
happened to one of us. I think I know how I 
shall feel when you grow up and are married, 
Rosamond.” 

“Next week is Daddy’s birthday,” said Sibyl. 
“And by that time he will have written that last 
chapter. I think we ought to do something great 
for him on that day.” 

“I want you should come out here a minute, 
Rosamond and Gaynor,” said Mary Frances, look- 
ing in on the group just in time to distract the 
others’ attention from Sibyl’s suggestion. 

“Do slip off your wrappings. Gay,” said Rosa- 
mond as she took up her bowl and carried it into 
the pantry. “I think we ought to be more digni- 
fied with Malone than we are with Amos. A 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 227 

city servant is very different from old family 
friends like the Reddeshes/’ 

Gay complied, saying as she struggled with a 
button half-way up her back which she finally 
presented to Anstiss for rescue : “I’m not going to 
call him Malone; I’m going to call him My Loan.” 

“Oh, Gay!” Rosamond laughed, though she 
tried to look sober. “Now don’t play tricks with 
Mrs. Hardtwitt’s man, please don’t!” 

“It isn’t a trick; it’s so appropriate ! Of course 
it ought to be Our Loan, but he’d notice that, and 
he’ll never hear the difference between Malone and 
My Loan. Try it ! It even feels almost the same 
on your tongue! But it’s truthful, and I must 
speak the truth — he is My Loan — and yours too. 
You listen when I say it and watch, and see if he 
hears it ! But it will ease my conscience, and be- 
sides it will be expressing gratitude to Mrs. 
Hardtwitt.” Gay went out of the door with a 
look intended to convey her nobility of purpose, 
and Rosamond followed her with cheeks reddened 
by her effort to look grave. 

“Ah, My Loan, did you want to see us?” asked 
wicked Gay. Sibyl and Anstiss, who had come 
out too, giggled, but the good-natured giant 


228 Daddy’s Daughters 

looked up innocently from his work and smiled 
with respectful kindness on the little girls. 

“Yes, Miss Gaynor; I wanted Mary Frances to 
tell you that I don’t think her husband’s got the 
celery just as it should be, and I’d fix it up for you 
before tea time if you’d have it. She said she 
thought maybe you wanted to give up celery, and 
put late lettuce there, so I waited.” he said. 

“Oh, no indeed. My Loan,” said Gay. “We 
would be digging up our Thanksgiving! Of 
course we want celery !” 

Her Loan grinned. “Well, Miss Gaynor, 
’twould be a pity, so it would,” he said. “I’ll go 
up and take a turn at it now then, and it wants 
irrig'gating.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Rosamond, and bent over to 
tie her shoe to hide the laugh that escaped her at 
this unexpected pronunciation of irrigating. 
Gay had the faculty of looking solemn when she 
most wanted to laugh. “Very well; we shall be 
glad to have you irrig'gate it all you will. My 
Loan,” she said. 

The big man beamed on her unconscious, but 
as he did so his face changed. “Why, here comes 
Gladys Plummer !” he exclaimed. 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 229 

There was something in his voice so unlike his 
good nature and respect that the Inglesant girls 
wondered, but turned to see that he was right. 
It really was Gladys coming up the walk, though 
she had not been near them since they had fallen 
into the flower trade. 

The two elder Inglesants went to meet her, a 
meeting that was easy and pleasant on their side, 
but in which Gladys betrayed the greatest embar- 
rassment. 

“Oh, how do you do she said. “Fm so glad 
to see you again ! There hasn’t been much time 
for visiting, but I’ve missed you awfully.” 

Rosamond and Gay stared a little, but tried to 
murmur a reply in the same “key of five-o’clock 
teas,” as Gay described it afterward. 

“Please let’s go in this way,” said Gladys, halt- 
ing at the side door, and casting a quick glance 
toward the front where “My Loan” still lingered. 

“Now,” she said as the girls led her into the 
library. “I came up to ask you to do a lot of 
things. Ma said — oh laws, Rosamond and Gay, 
I said what she told me to say when I came, but I 
can’t keep it up ! She said I should give you each 
these bangle bracelets she bought for you, and say 


230 


Daddy’s Daughters 


a lot of things, but I can’t do it. Here are the 
bangles though; you can take the ones you want.” 

Sibyl looked very pleased; she dearly liked orna- 
ments, and on that point her indulgent Daddy was 
adamant — he would not permit his daughters any 
ornaments beyond a simple brooch and their fresh 
young tints. 

“Why, thank you, Gladys,” said Rosamond 
slowly, not knowing how to decline the gifts which 
neither she nor Gay, she was certain, wanted to 
accept. 

“Why, I don’t believe we may wear them, 
Gladys,” said Gay frankly, acting on a hint in 
Rosamond’s eyes. “You see Daddy thinks young 
girls like us should not wear any jewelry. So it 
would be a pity to take them if we may not use 
them.” 

“I thought he’d let you do anything,” said 
Gladys. “Well, I can’t take ’em back, because ma 
said no matter what you said I was to leave ’em. 
And she wants you should come to our house to 
supper Saturday night; she says she’ll ask the 
Burroughs too, if you want her to. And she says 
wouldn’t you like to make up a French class with 
me? She says she’ll hire the teacher, and she’d 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 231 

love to do it. And she says she wants to come 
up here the very first day she can and ask your 
father to let her take Rosamond and Gay off 
to the beach for two weeks with her and 1. 
There !” 

The girls looked dumbfounded, with good rea- 
son, at this flood-tide of benefits to be conferred. 
It was so much beyond ordinary offers on the one 
hand that it seemed to warrant extraordinary 
response on the other. Gay was carried beyond 
her pretty manners. 

“What in the world has happened, Gladys? 
What made your mother — well, swamp us seems 
to be the word — all at once ?” she cried. 

Rosamond did not mind Gay’s outspokenness; 
it was partly funny and partly annoying, this sud- 
den right-about-face movement on the part of 
Mrs. Plummer. 

“There, I told ma you’d think something was 
up!” said candid Gladys with evident relief that 
she was delivered from the necessity of diplomacy. 
“Ma said I was to lead up to it and get around it 
delicately, but I ain’t much good at managing. 

So I’m going just to say it, straight out She 

wants you to say you won’t tell, that’s all.” 


232 Daddy’s Daughters 

“Won’t tell ?” echoed Rosamond and Gay, more 
than ever bewildered. 

“Tell what?” asked Anstiss bluntly. 

“Tell that your mother thought we — the girls — 
ought not to sell flowers ?” suggested Sibyl. 

“Oh, those flowers, no!” Gladys’ voice arose 
several pitches in her contempt. “That was silly; 
I knew it then, and ma knows it now, since she 
sees how people admire you for being so bright 
and doing something nice like that, and useful too. 
It isn’t that. She doesn’t want you to say any- 
thing about Mr. Malone.” 

“Anything about ?” Rosamond hesitated, 

very much puzzled. 

“Yes. She says no one else in Windsley 
knows, and she’d hate to have it talked about,” 
Gladys said. “You wouldn’t like it either.” 

“Well, truthfully, Gladys, either you are the 
least bit crazy or we must be,” said Gay. “What 
can you mean ?” 

“Why, ma doesn’t want you to say he’s her 
cousin, of course. I don’t see anything hard to 
understand about that, and I must say I think you 
might promise right off.” Gladys looked im- 
patient. “It’s not that I care very much,” Gladys 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 233 

went on, misunderstanding the silence in which 
her neighbours had received this surprising infor- 
mation. “I guess there’s nothing wrong about 
the Malones, but ma says of all things to think that 
one of ’em should have been brought up to the 
Sugawnee and be working for you! And she 
would like you not to say he was her second 
cousin. I guess everybody knows my father had 
to make his money, and somehow I don’t mind; 
sometimes I think I’d like to go and stay with our 
poor relations — I don’t have much fun, and I don’t 
like being a fine lady! Miss Wrenn is nice to me 
— she knows what I mean.” Gladys ended her 
remarks in a shaky voice and with a sob as un- 
expected to her as it was to her hearers. 

Rosamond laid a hand on her shoulder with the 
pretty womanliness which was hers when needed, 
and her voice was very sweet as she said: “We 
know what you mean too, Gladys. You’re an 
honest girl, and we like you. You feel just as 
we do about wanting to be very real, and not one 
bit an imitation in any way. Miss Wrenn thinks 
you’re going to be very nice, and do a lot of good 
with your money when you’re grown up and find 
your own place in the world — Miss Wrenn is so 


2 34 Daddy’s Daughters 

nice to all of us young girls ! Now as to Malone, 
he hadn’t told us that he was Mrs. Plummer’s 
cousin, so we had no idea what you meant when 
you began to speak. If he does tell us we shall 
not speak of it. Please tell your mother that we 
should not have spoken of it, even if she had not 
asked us not to. But please take back the bangles, 
with our thanks, Gladys, and please say that we 
would rather not have a party made for us, and 
just now we couldn’t very well begin French, and 
as to going away from home this summer that 
would be impossible. Thank your mother, 
Gladys, but don’t let her think that she has to 
bribe the Inglesant girls to keep a secret. We 
will do so because we give our word to do so, and 
because our dearest Daddy would never allow us 
to gossip by so much as a syllable.” 

Gay looked at Rosamond with eyes that shone 
with pride in her; she spoke with such sweet 
dignity, was so womanly, yet so simply the young 
girl that she was ! 

Gladys looked up and Gladys looked down. ‘T 
told ma you’d take it that way; I told her it would 
seem as if she was trying to buy you off, but she 
said it wasn’t that. Ma didn’t understand, Rosa- 


A Loan and Borrowed Plumes 235 

mond; she means right, and she only thought if 
she was good to you you’d want to do something 
for her. Don’t feel mad, or hurt, or anything; 
please don’t,” she said. 

“Indeed we’re not !” “Of course it was only a 
mistake,” said Gay and Rosamond quickly and to- 
gether. “We know your mother is very kind,” 
Rosamond added. “We have not forgotten how 
good she was when Sibyl broke her ankle. It’s 
all right, Gladys, only we would rather not accept 
these kindnesses — you understand.” 

“Yes, I do,” said Gladys bluntly. “And I mean 
to copy after you girls, just as Miss Wrenn ad- 
vises me to! Won’t you come to see me some- 
times?” 

“Indeed we will ! We meant to have come ” 

“Yes,’' Gladys interrupted Gay hastily. “But 
you couldn’t forget all about that, could you ?” 

Gay made passes around Rosamond’s head, 
then around Sibyl’s, then Anstiss’, and finally 
around her own, saying as she did so : “Hie est 
omnibus in obliviationis et forgetibus, non remem- 
berum in eterna. — That’s a spell, Gladys; now 
we don’t remember one thing but that you’re a 
plum of a Plummer, and Fm going to make you 


236 Daddy’s Daughters 

some lemonade.” When Gladys at last departed 
the Inglesants watched her off, waving their hands 
as she turned the gate. 

“There’s something fine about that honest 
Gladys,” said Rosamond. 

“Miss Wrenn always said so. We will go to 
see her, won’t we?” said Gay. 

“Yes; I really like her, and she isn’t very 
happy,” said Rosamond, to whom that was suf- 
ficient reason for liking any one. 

“Funny, with all she’s got!” said Anstiss 
thoughtfully. 

“To think that My Loan should be borrowed 
from Mrs. Plummer too !” laughed Gay. 

“Oh well, Mrs. Plummer and My Loan are both 
kind-hearted, good people. The way things get 
mixed up is hard ; I have an idea it would be easier 
if only people could be strong-minded enough not 
to bother about it,” said Rosamond thoughtfully. 

“I wish we could have had those bangles,” 
sighed Sibyl, whose longing for the pretty trinkets 
blinded her eyes to that for which they stood. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE FATE OF A FETE 

M ISS WRENN came tripping across the 
grass by a short cut from her house to the 
Inglesant Place, holding up her skirts with much 
of the dainty crispness of manner peculiar to her 
feathered namesake. Near the boundary line of 
her destination the sound of sobbing fell upon her 
ear, gasping, furious sobs too tempestuous to be 
called forth by ordinary grief. She turned into 
the Inglesant Place through the small gate made 
at its rear boundary by Amos for her special con- 
venience, and saw prone on the ground with her 
face pressed into the pine-strewn turf, Gay, the 
merry one. Her attitude was tragic; her hands 
were stretched out straight before her, and they 
were too well encrusted with the soil to allow a 
doubt that she had been digging up bits of the 
world which were within reach by way of protest 
against its treatment of her. The ground at her 
237 


Daddy’s Daughters 


238 

feet was dug out into a hole as if a woodchuck had 
been at it, and the colour of the toes of her shoes 
would have plainly declared the digger, even if she 
had not kicked viciously just as Miss Wrenn spied 
her. 

“Gaynor, Gay, dear child, what can be the mat- 
ter?” cried Miss Wrenn, rather frightened. 

Gay raised a face swollen and disfigured by cry- 
ing; what was visible of her blue eyes was black 
with excitement, and her cheeks were crimson. 
She choked, and made a dab at her inflamed eye- 
lids with a ball of a wet handkerchief, so enriched 
by the loam that she might as well have wiped her 
face with a clod, and then she said hoarsely : “I’m 
mad ! I’m furious !” 

Poor Gay spoke as though she expected to 
alienate her old friend by the confession, but as 
though in the midst of the blackness of her soul 
further bitterness did not matter. Miss Wrenn 
came over and sat down beside her. She laid 
her thin little hand on Gay’s tousled head, and so 
far from being driven off by her acknowledgment, 
her voice was unusually tender as she said : “Poor 
little Gay! You ari? in a bad way ! The old hot 
temper hasn’t got the best of you for many a day 


The Fate of a Fete 


239 

before, has it? Aren’t you going to tell me what 
is wrong?” 

‘‘Oh, it’s Sibyl !” cried Gay, rolling over on her 
back and then rising on her elbow the better to 
declare her grievance. “I did think I’d never 
again get a fit, but just be mad decently, like other 
people, but when I came home to-day, all hot and 
tired, and Sibyl told what she had done, something 
burst in me, just as it used to when I was little — 
and here’s the fit! I can’t get mad like Rosa- 
mond; she’s upstairs now, deeply disgusted, and 
treating Sibyl with that icy disapproval of hers 
that makes you feel about as big as a knot in 
number one hundred thread ! And Anstiss is dis- 
gusted too, in her way, but I can’t hold in. When 
a thing makes me mad all the way through and 
back again I have to — to kick!” Gay looked 
shamefacedly at the hole at her feet which told 
Miss Wrenn that she meant that statement liter- 
ally, not in a slang sense. “I suppose when St. 
Paul told us to be angry and sin not, he meant we 
were to act the way Rosamond does — I wonder if 
he ever knew a real pepper-pot !” 

Miss Wrenn laughed. “St. Peter was naturally 
a pepper-pot, I imagine — warm-hearted, impul- 


240 Daddy’s Daughters 

sive, generous, and St. Paul himself could hardly 
be described as a cool person,” she said. “You 
queer little Gay! You know quite well that there 
are reasons for righteous indignation, and that is 
what Sti Paul meant. Am I to know what Sibyl 
has done that is so monstrous as to offend all three 
of you?” 

“Miss Winnie, I wouldn’t say it to any one else, 
but you know that Sibyl really is pretty selfish, 
and when she wants to do a thing she just walks 
off and does it, and the rest of us can come on 
after as well as we can,” said Gay with entire 
truth. “It’s something awful the way she gets 
what she’s after, just because she ” 

“Takes her own way,” said Miss Winnie as Gay 
hesitated. “Dear Gay, selfish people usually get 
what they want, because they compel generous 
people to their own ends. I think it is very try- 
ing to see that people who never turn out usually 
arrive, and that they who throw their own weight 
on others are usually carried. There’s one com- 
fort : Not for all that the world could give would 
any one with a sense of justice and of what is 
beautiful get their desires by such methods !” 

“Of course you wouldn’t!” cried Gay “But 


The Fate of a Fete 


241 

somehow when a thing isn’t fair I can’t stand 
it.” 

“Poor little Gay! That would be rather 
serious, if it were true, in a world full of unfair- 
ness !’" said Miss Wrenn, secretly sympathising 
with Gay’s fierce love of fair-play. “But we long 
ago agreed that whether we were in the right or 
in the wrong it would never do to lose our self- 
control.” 

“It’s hard on the loser,” said Gay. “I feel down 
sick, and my head is thumping. But do listen, 
Miss Winnie ! Daddy’s birthday is Thursday. I 
suppose you know that Rosamond and I would 
like to celebrate it about as well as Sibyl would, 
but how can we? There is Amos not down yet, 
though he is coming down to-morrow, and you 
know we have to use our flower money for lots of 
things — more things than there is money. But 
what do you think Sibyl has done? She has 
walked off, without saying a word to anybody, 
mind you ! — and she has engaged boats, and 
planned to have a water fete on the river Thurs- 
day — she says something Daddy read aloud to us 
the other night about Queen Elizabeth’s parties 
on the Thames put it into her head, and 


24 ^ Daddy’s Daughters 

she knows Daddy will just love it because he 
loves old English things so much! I thought 
Rosamond and I would drop when she told 
us! Of course he would love it — so would we, 
if we could have it right and could pay for it 
— and Daddy would never understand, and he’ll 
think it was the loveliest, thoughtfulest thing of 
Sibyl, and he’ll be as pleased ! But when we said : 
'How do you expect to pay for your party, Sibyl 
Inglesant?’ Sibyl said, as calm as a — a star, or 
an orange ice : ‘The flower money will more than 
do it !’ Then Rosamond looked at her and simply 
walked away, head up — you know Rosamond! 
And Anstiss positively grunted, she was so dis- 
gusted, and she walked off too. But I — well, I 
ripped off, I don’t know any other word for it, 
and I ran out here and I tore around like a — a 
fretful porcupine!” Gay half laughed, with a 
little choke over her own simile. 

“Miss Wrenn’s expression indicated that she 
sympathised with Gay more than she blamed her 
for her explosion. “It is not a little trying,” she 
said decidedly. “I don’t want you to fly off like 
this when anything bothers you, dear Gay, but I 
confess this is something to try you. It must be 


The Fate of a Fete 243 

made right; Sibyl must be taught that she cannot 
disregard Mary Frances and you to the extent of 
making plans without consulting you. And she 
certainly must be made to see that she cannot 
spend other people’s money without their per- 
mission.” 

“If we only had a mother!” sighed Gay, tears 
of another sort from her scalding angry ones well- 
ing up in her painful eyes. 

“Would you be glad to have a mother, little 
Gay?” asked Miss Wrenn softly. 

“Why, Miss Winnie, is there a girl on earth 
that doesn’t need one and want one ?” cried Gay, 
wondering. “But you have done more than any 
one else could to keep us from missing ours. 
Mary Frances has looked after us splendidly, but 
you give us something dear Mary Frances never 
could give us. And the worst of it is that Sibyl 
looks more like our mother than any of us. Daddy 
says. When she makes me furious — and she’s the 
one I always get mad with, never Rose-of-the- 
world, and only a wee bit provoked with Anstiss 
sometimes, when she’s too determined — why, then 
I always remember that Daddy says Sibyl looks 
like mama, and I’m sorry. But I don’t, I 


244 Daddy’s Daughters 

do not believe she’s like our mother in being 
selfish.” 

“No, indeed; you are like her in disposition, 
Gay. Warm-hearted, quick to love and to dislike, 
generous and true-hearted, not in the least selfish 
was your mother. Sibyl is like her in colouring 
and in the shape of her features, but not in ex- 
pression; she could hardly be that, as she is so 
different in nature,” said Miss Wrenn. “Now, 
my dear, you come with me, and go up to your 
room and bathe your poor puffed-up little face, 
and rest a while. I will find Sibyl, and I will 
make her see that she has done wrong. And I am 
sure that I can inspire in her a willingness to re- 
pair that wrong, by going about and cancelling 
every arrangement that she has made for this 
Elizabethan water-triumph of hers. Such absurd 
children as you are! You never play a prank or 
get into a scrape that it hasn’t a literary flavour 1 
That comes of being the comrades of your book- 
worm Daddy I Then, after I have brought Sibyl 
to see the error of her ways, and to amend them, 
I will myself give a little party in honour of your 
dear Daddy’s birthday. I will engage boats, and 
we will all go downstream to some delectable point 


The Fate of a Fete 


245 


and have as good a time as Queen Bess ever gave 
her subjects, with much greater safety to our 
heads than that lady’s executive tendencies in- 
sured.” 

“Dear Miss Winnie, what a darling you are!” 
cried Gay, starting up in a rapture that healed her 
woes. “What in all this world should we do 
without you !” 

Miss Wrenn kissed Gay back again with 
peculiar warmth. “I hope that you will always 
feel that you love me and want me, Gaynor child,” 
she said. And something in her voice made Gay 
wonder; “as if something were going to happen 
to me,” thought Gay. “You know another reason 
for Sibyl’s wanting to celebrate this birthday was 
that The Novel is finished,” she said aloud. 

Miss Wrenn looked profoundly moved. “Ah, 
I didn’t know I” she murmured. “Then we must 
surely celebrate — perhaps we ought to pardon 
Sibyl for her mistaken zeal.” 

Miss Wrenn and Gay arm in arm went up to the 
great house, whose front door stood invitingly 
open. 

“Slip away. Gay dear, and rest and cool your 
eyes; I will see Sibyl alone,” whispered this good 


246 Daddy's Daughters 

friend, and Gay obeyed with a tiny parting kiss 
on Miss Winnie’s delicate collar, though aimed at 
her cheek. 

Miss Wrenn was very nearly certain to succeed 
in anything that she undertook, especially when it 
involved managing others, for she “had a way 
with her,” as Mrs. Plummer said of her, that made 
people consider it a pleasure to do whatever she 
suggested. She knew how to make people believe 
in the end that something which she wanted done, 
but to which they had profoundly objected at first, 
had been for long the desire of their hearts. Miss 
Winnie was a little person in stature and frame, 
but in mind and will and persuasiveness she was 
great. 

So now she did not fail with Sibyl. That com- 
placent little girl began her interview with Miss 
Wrenn with much dignity and not a little impor- 
tance, being inclined to stand upon her right to 
arrange for whatever she pleased, regardless of 
the fact that she would have to levy on the family 
exchequer to pay the piping to which she danced. 
She ended in tears of humility, clearly seeing the 
injustice of her action, and promising to atone for 
it by eating humble pie in large and rather indi- 


The Fate of a Fete 247 

gestible slices, by countermanding all the orders 
which she had so proudly given for the water fete 
for Daddy-dear’s birthday. 

Sibyl kept her promise — there was no doubt 
that an Inglesant would always keep a plighted 
word — and she stopped mournfully at Miss Win- 
nie’s house on the following day to tell her that 
she had done her work thoroughly — not an order 
for the party was left standing. Then Miss 
Wrenn kissed her, and told her that another party, 
an amplification of Sibyl’s pretty plan, was to be 
given on the river, and that Daddy’s birthday and 
the completion of The Novel would be celebrated 
after all. Sibyl ran all the way home in a whirl 
of delight over this news, entirely ready to confess 
that it was better to consult one’s elders, after all, 
especially when one had such elders as the In- 
glesants’ little fairy godmother in the Wrenn 
house. 

Daddy’s birthday was all that it should be in 
point of weather, a lovely August day, not scorch- 
ing the world like July, but resting upon it 
warmly, with gracious gifts of blackberries ripen- 
ing from red into their name-tint, golden rod 
opening to turn each fallow field and roadside into 


248 Daddy’s Daughters 

an eldorado, vines turning crimson and bronze, 
hinting of glories to come, and a soft breeze chas- 
ing downy clouds across a sky as blue as that 
which Lake Maggiore mirrors. 

Miss Wrenn’s party was to start at four o’clock; 
by half-past three it was assembled on the bank of 
the pretty river that flowed at the feet of quiet 
Windsley, half forgotten by the Inglesants except 
when they caught its gleam from the upper win- 
dows of the old house, or were reminded of it 
pleasantly, as to-day. 

There were three boats, long ones, with strong 
rowers to convey the party downstream to a little 
island around which the river made circuit. 
Deliriously tempting hampers were stowed away 
under the seats, and the party was shipped: 
Daddy, Mrs. Hardtwitt, Mrs. Burroughs, Mrs. 
Plummer, and their hostess in one boat; Rosa- 
mond, Gay, Tryphena and Tryphosa, and Cocky 
in the second; Sibyl, Anstiss, Gladys, Priscilla and 
Drusilla, Vere, and Hale in the third. They 
rowed down sometimes in single file, sometimes 
two boats abreast, talking, singing, calling back 
and forth, bringing spectators to their happy pas- 
sage all along the banks, who cheered them and 


The Fate of a Fete 


249 

waved their hands to them, wishing them the good 
time already assured them. 

'IVe struck isle \” shouted Hale, leaping first of 
all the picnickers to the shore of their happy hunt- 
ing ground. 

“The isle has struck me,” cried Gay, making a 
desperate effort to be the second to land, and fall- 
ing headlong into the damp grass on the brink, to 
the serious detriment of her freshly ironed frock. 

A fourth boat had come down after the three 
which carried the party, and from it were landed 
Miss Wrenn’s servants, one of whom arranged a 
long table, while the other unpacked the hampers. 
Vere, Cocky, and Hale brought firewood and 
made the fire for the coffee ; “but everything else, 
including the ice cream, is to be cold,” Vere ex- 
plained kindly. 

“It’s a perfectly beautiful party, and we’re glad 
you were born, Mr. Inglesant,” said Tryphena, 
gathering up the crumbs of her cake into a kind of 
pill and taking it with a satisfied sigh. 

“We knew it would be beautiful if our dear 
little ladybird Wrenbird got it up,” added Gay, 
falling back into her babyhood name for her be- 
loved Miss Winnie. But as she spoke she won- 


250 Daddy’s Daughters 

dered why Gladys was regarding her with such a 
tragic gaze, a gaze of which she had been con- 
scious, following her and Rosamond with a pity- 
ing foreboding all the evening. “She doesn’t 
look as though I had a smooch on my nose, nor as 
if my hat were on crooked and I didn’t know it; 
she looks more as though I were going to be hung, 
and didn’t know it,” thought Gay, analysing 
Gladys’ compound gaze. 

Going home the party was apportioned to the 
boats in slightly different order from its coming 
— Rosamond, Gay, and Gladys sat together in the 
stern seat of one of them, holding themselves, 
closely fitted into the space, by their arms around 
one another’s waist. 

The moonlight was glorious, and Rosamond 
sat entranced by its light, oblivious to all sub- 
lunary considerations, but Gay’s active mind was 
dwelling on Gladys’ curious expression as she had 
constantly watched the two elder Inglesants. 

“What have you been thinking about, Gladys?” 
she said at last. “You’ve been watching Rosa- 
mond and me as if we were early martyrs and you 
saw the lions getting ready to spring on us. 
What’s up ?” 


The Fate of a Fete 


^51 

‘^Oh, I can’t tell you; don’t ask me,” said 
Gladys, plainly meaning : “Do ask me !” 

“Is it as bad as that? It must be lions,” said 
Gay. 

“It’s worse,” groaned Gladys, but whether to 
the first or to the latter part of Gay’s exclamation 
was not clear. 

“Worse than lions? It must be tigers then; I 
always did think I should be more afraid of them,” 
laughed Gay. 

“It’s worse than tigers,” declared Gladys, net- 
tled by Gay’s refusal to be impressed. “Or at 
least. I’d as lief have a tiger as have one.” 

“Have what?” said Rosamond, arousing from 
her mooning. 

“Isn’t your father going to New York to-mor- 
row?” asked Gladys sepulchrally. 

“Yes, but he isn’t going to bring home 
a tiger, not even the Tammany tiger!” cried 
Gay. 

“He is going to bring home something far 
worse,” said Gladys slowly. “I hate to tell you, 
but I think I ought to. Everybody knows it but 
you — Ma, Miss Wrenn, everybody. He is going 
to bring home — now be calm, poor Rosamond, 


2^2 Daddy's Daughters 

you poor dear Gay, you! — He is going to bring 
home ” 

“My heart!” cried Gay with a nervous giggle. 
“Is it snails, Gladys ? What is he going to bring 
home ?” 

“A stepmother for you girls,” said Gladys. 

A horrified silence fell on Rosamond and Gay, 
then Gay rallied. “Who ever heard of anything 
so silly!” she cried. “As though Daddy would!” 

“He has not told you; he said himself that he 
could not tell you, but it is certainly true,” per- 
sisted Gladys. 

“He said he could not tell us? Do you mean 
that Daddy, our Daddy-dear, Stanley Inglesant, 
has told some one else ? Do you — you can’t mean 
that any one knows it, really knows it?” Gay 
stammered. 

“He himself told my mother,” said Gladys. 
“Don’t look like that. She may be nice.” 

“Rosamond, Rosamond, do you believe it?” 
Gay’s teeth chattered as if she were cold. 

“Certainly not,” said Rosamond in a suffocated 
voice. 

“You’ll see,” said Gladys. She did not want 
her friends to suffer, but neither did she want 


The Fate of a Fete 253 

them to doubt her thrilling news. And just at 
that moment the boat’s keel grated on the pebbly 
bank of the river at Windsley, and Hale’s voice 
summoned the girls in the stern to disembark. 

Daddy’s birthday fete was over, begun so 
happily, but ended in misery. For, in spite of 
their vigorous denials of the truth of Gladys’ 
information, Rosamond and Gay’s hearts were 
lead within their breasts. They well knew that 
thus in story books often ended the happy life 
together of fathers and daughters left alone to 
care for one another. 


CHAPTER XVII 
DADDY DEPARTS 

T he mirrors in the ancient dressing table and 
above the massive mahogany bureau re- 
flected four tragic faces that night. Rosamond 
and Gay had repeated to Sibyl and Anstiss Gladys’ 
distressing news. All four of Daddy’s daughters 
vehemently agreed that it could not be true, yet all 
four faces were draped in an expression of crepe, 
and each of the girls fell to planning what she 
should do if it were true. 

‘T shall die,” said Sibyl solemnly. ‘T shall 
never be able to live through such a thing. To 
think of a person, a person whom we do not know, 
coming here and taking the head of the Inglesant 
house !” 

‘‘We should get acquainted with her, as far as 
that goes,” moaned Gay from her position face 
downward across the foot of the great four-poster 
bed. “What I think of is that she would really 
254 


Daddy Departs 255 

take the Head of the Inglesant family — take him 
away from us, our Daddy, our only Daddy, all the 
world-and-more to us!’' Gay broke off with a 
convulsive kick and a sob that seemed to rend her 
breast. 

“We know,” said Rosamond slowly, “that it is 
not true, and yet Gladys said that Daddy himself 
told her mother of it. But he would surely take 
his daughters into his confidence first — and yet he 
would dread to break our hearts, I suppose. If it 
were true I should want to go away from Wind- 
sley forever. I should never want to see our home 
again. I don’t know what I should do — I won- 
der if I could be a nun ?” 

“I should go away too,” said Anstiss, and the 
look on her round, sensible little face was sullenly 
obstinate. “I should go away and be somebody’s 
housekeeper, and arrange to visit you girls once a 
year and have each of you come to see me once a 
year. If we went away from home we should be 
very poor, of course. I don’t suppose I could be- 
gin to be a housekeeper for a while, though, 
because people wouldn’t take any one who was 
eleven — and I shan’t be twelve till next summer. 
I should like to go to keep house for the Bur- 


256 Daddy’s Daughters 

roughs; they are so nice, and they need a house- 
keeper more than any one else, only they don’t 
know they need one. They’d probably take 
me sooner than a stranger would : I mean 
they wouldn’t make me wait to grow up too 
much.” 

Gay raised her head. ‘Dh, what’s the use?” 
she gasped. “Of planning, I mean. Some 
stepmothers are not bad — Miss Wrenn says 
hers was like the dearest kind of an own mother. 
But even if we got one like the worst in 
Grimms’ Tales, a witch that boiled us in a big 
iron pot, we’d have to stay and be boiled over 
Daddy’s fire, because we couldn’t leave Daddy. 
Besides, we’re not going to have a stepmother; 
we know it isn’t true. My head is splitting and 
I’ve got a tight, funny pain in my left side, as if 
my heart pulled. Let’s go to bed. Daddy doesn’t 
want anybody but us; he never has wanted^ any- 
body but us, outside of a bound book ! Oh dear, 
what ever made Gladys say it? And what could 
have made Daddy say it? Come to bed, Rosa- 
mond. I wonder why when a thing can’t pos- 
sibly be true you believe it is true, just be- 
cause it would be so awful if it were!” Rosa- 


Daddy Departs 257 

mond could not solve this melancholy riddle, and 
the four girls trailed off to bed, Sibyl and Anstiss 
departing together to console each other by com- 
panionship in their misery. 

For the first time in their short lives the In- 
glesants spent the night more waking than sleep- 
ing, and came down to breakfast pallid imitations 
of their usual selves. 

Daddy, on the contrary, was more than ordi- 
narily gay and light-hearted; merry as he always 
was, he seemed especially full of mischief, hurry- 
ing through the meal over which Mary Frances 
considered him inclined as a rule to dawdle, for 
the train which he was to take for New York left 
Windsley at twenty minutes after nine. 

Rosamond sat pale and sad at the head of the 
table, concealing her feelings behind the big 
coffee urn and busying herself unnecessarily with 
the cups. 

Sibly’s tears flowed quietly, with difficulty di- 
verted from the cereal which she pretended to eat. 
Anstiss looked glum and rebellious, and Gay’s 
face was almost purple from repressed emotion, 
though she could not help plucking up heart as she 
saw how light was Daddy’s heart — he could not 


258 Daddy’s Daughters 

be going away so carelessly to inflict pain upon his 
beloved children. 

Daddy feigned not to see the signs of woe 
around him, but they became so pronounced as 
breakfast neared its end that he could no longer 
ignore them, and he said — a trifle impatiently, for 
he liked a cheerful atmosphere — folding his nap- 
kin as he spoke : 

“Now, my girlies, why this gloom? I really 
think a trip to New York for a few days is not to 
be hailed like a final departure from this world! 
Sibyl, you are treating that prepared cereal that 
you like so well, and which always suggests to me 
upholsterers’ materials, as if it were funeral bake- 
meats. Do be sensible, my chickens, and cheerful, 
according to your delightful habit.” 

Gay turned half around in her chair, folding 
her arms across its back with a boyish movement, 
dropping her head upon them. She lost all vestige 
of returning self-control at this appeal. Rosa- 
mond’s head drooped lower, as did the corners of 
Anstiss’ mouth, but Sibyl said, through a burst of 
tears : 

“Why are you g-g-going to New York; oh. 
Daddy, why are you g-g-go-going ?” 


Daddy Departs 259 

“To attend that sale of rare old books, O 
Sibyl !” Daddy mocked her. “That sounded like 
the Latin grammar: nominative, Daddy; genitive, 
of a Daddy; vocative, O Daddy. There is noth- 
ing so very dreadful about going to a book sale, 
is there?” 

“No, but what are you going to bring home?” 
persisted Sibyl, and the others held their breath. 

“Nobody knows; some fine old first editions, if 
Lm not too afraid of Mary Frances’ disapproval,” 
laughed Daddy. 

“The whole thing is this,” said Gay, suddenly 
straightening herself, and taking the office of 
spokesman upon herself. “Gladys said that you 
had told her mother you were going to bring us 
home a stepmother. She said even Miss Winnie 
half — well, didn’t know.” Gay ended lamely, 
checked by the expression of Daddy’s face. 

“Of all that is wonderful !” he said slowly, then 
a light seemed to break upon him, and he laughed. 
“I know now!” he cried. “Mrs. Plummer was 
making certain suggestions to me which were an- 
noyingly in bad taste, and I could not resent them. 
So I fell back on my usual weapon of nonsense 
and told her that I was sorry that I could not carry 


26 o Daddy’s Daughters 

out the arrangements which she was so kindly 
making for me, because I was soon going to New 
York to bring home with me the rival to my girls 
in the first place in my affections. And so she re- 
peated this, altering the form of my statement to a 
definite stepmother for you ! That is an excellent 
illustration of how stories grow, my dears, even in 
the mouth of one who does not intend to distort 
them ! Now who have we always said was your 
rival in my love ?” 

“Books !” shouted Gay, springing from the 
chair, which she upset in so doing, and rushing 
around to throw her arms around Daddy. “Hal- 
lelujah chorus, hoorah! Books, my Daddy!” 
Rosamond, Sibyl, and Anstiss followed her, and 
Daddy escaped red and choking from the mad 
embrace of the four. 

“Fancy your entertaining such a rumour for a 
moment !” he said reproachfully. “Do you think 
that I would deal with you so dishonourably as not 
to tell you rather than a neighbour, and that 
neighbour Mrs. Plummer, if I were going to put 
a stranger in Rosamond’s place behind that urn, 
at the head of my table? You are rather foolish 
little girls after all, though I have plumed myself 


26 i 


Daddy Departs 

on your superior sense ! Now listen, dear Daugh- 
ters-of-your-Daddy. A man does not care to 
talk much about what he feels most deeply, and 
you know I drift through life very happily con- 
tent. But when your mother went away and left 
me, she left a void that cannot be filled, and only 
her little girls can approach its brink. So dismiss 
from your hearts forever all jealous fears that you 
will ever be called upon to share your daddy; the 
sacrifice will be his one day, but not yours.’’ 

“Forgive us. Daddy-dear,” said Rosamond 
softly. “We were very horrid, yet we didn’t be- 
lieve, really believe it.” 

“No, but though you didn’t believe, you 
‘doubted,’ as the Scotchman said of ghosts,” 
smiled Daddy. “Never mind; the cloud has 
passed another way. Will you let me go to New 
York now with smiling faces?” 

“With tin horns and drums,” said Gay jubi- 
lantly. “We knew it couldn’t be true. Daddy; we 
are dreadfully ashamed, but we would not have 
thought of it for a moment if it hadn’t have been 
something that we felt we could not bear.” 

“I see,” said Daddy, with a laugh. “Dear girls, 
do look at that clock ! I shall lose my train !” 


262 Daddy’s Daughters 

“I’ll run and tell My Loan to hurry up with 
Gustavus Adolphus,” said Anstiss, the corners of 
whose mouth were now smiling until they looked 
looped up like a window curtain. 

“And My Loan departs to-day,” said Daddy. 
“I must remember it when he takes me to the 
station.” 

The girls waved Daddy good-bye with radiant 
faces. “You look glad to get rid of me,” he called 
back as he started. 

“But he knows quite well that it is because we 
feel as if he were just coming, coming back from/ 
some dreadfully long journey, after our scare 
about losing him,” said Anstiss contentedly, as she 
trotted off to find Mary Frances and to proffer her 
aid in the morning’s tasks. 

Rosamond and Gay went over to the Bur- 
roughs’ to impart to them first the glad tidings of 
Daddy’s safety, before they hunted up Gladys; 
Sibyl had gone down to Miss Wrenn’s on the same 
errand. 

Rosamond and Gay discovered Cocky and 
Hale educating Noddy Longears, both pairs of 
twins assisting with profound interest. 

They waved their hands at the Inglesants, and 


Daddy Departs 263 

Gay called out, without stopping to laugh at 
Noddy: “Daddy was only joking when he told 
Mrs. Plummer that he was going to bring home a 
rival to us; — he didn’t say a stepmother; she 
thought that was what he meant. We supposed 
you had heard about it, so we hurried over to tell 
you it wasn’t so.” 

“Yes, we heard, but we didn’t think anything 
about it; of course it wasn’t so, or you’d have 
known it,” said Tryphosa, with so much more 
common sense than Daddy’s own daughters had 
shown that Gay felt deeply mortified, till she re- 
membered that Tryphosa could afford to be sensi- 
ble about the matter, for it made no difference to 
her. 

“Look at Noddy !” said Drusilla. “He couldn’t 
haul us in the cart; he’s too little, so the boys are 
going to teach him to drive it instead.” 

Noddy Longears wore a cap between his long 
ears, held down under — his chin, should one say ? 
by a narrow strap, like a soldier’s cap. Across his 
shoulders he wore a red jacket, adding much to 
his military appearance. The boys had got him 
into the little donkey cart originally intended for 
his labour, and were teaching him so to stand be- 


Daddy’s Daughters 


264 

fore the seat that, with a lap-robe pinned around 
him, he had the effect of being seated driving his 
own cart, which Cocky and Hale intended to pull. 
The little donkey seemed to understand what was 
expected of him, and lent himself to the game with 
a docility and an apparent sense of humour that 
filled the Burroughs with ecstasy. 

'‘Vere says we’ve got to call him Doctor Long- 
ears when he drives out; the celebrated homceop- 
athist Longears,” said Cocky, looking up from 
the reins which he was fastening inside the wrists 
of the doctor’s coat sleeves. “He says it’s a case 
of ‘like cures like,’ so Noddy is a homoeopathist. 
Vere likes to display his learning. By the way, 
the old chap goes to college in three weeks; won’t 
we miss him?” 

“Vere will leave a horrid gap,” said Tryphena 
and Tryphosa together. “We’d leave a horrid 
gap, any of us, but Vere has been here longest, 
and he’s been the Head of the House since father 
went away; he’s pretty dependable in spite of his 
nonsense.” 

“We all are,” said Cocky gravely. “Even 
Noddy Longears, you see! It’s a Burroughs 
trait.” 


Daddy Departs 265 

“Tell us about your father’s novel, can’t you?” 
said Tryphena suddenly. “Miss Wrenn was 
speaking of it to Rosamond yesterday, and I 
couldn’t help hearing. Will it be published by 
Mrs. Hardtwitt’s husband — Hardtwitt and Vel- 
lum? I suppose it will, because you are such 
friends with her!” 

“Oh, dear me, no,” said Rosamond quickly. 
“It will never be published by anybody. Daddy 
has been writing it for ten years, but not to show 
to any one, not even us. It is rather beautiful not 
to care for what everybody else fights to get — 
fame and money, and all that — but we can’t help 
wishing Daddy would publish The Novel.” 

Gay drew Tryphosa’s arm through her own and 
the two girls walked slowly away from the group 
around Noddy Longears. “I’ll say more than that 
to you, Tryphosa, because I am bursting to say 
it to some one, and you are safe to talk to — I don’t 
like to bother Rosamond with it. She doesn’t 
feel about it as strongly as I do; she wants The 
Novel published, of course, but I more than want 
it — I’m crazy to have it come out ! I want Daddy 
to get the good of it, for, though I haven’t seen 
one word of it, I know what sort of a book Stanley 


266 Daddy’s Daughters 

Inglesant could write. But there’s more to it 
than that, Thosa. Mary Frances says there may 
be dreadful trouble ahead of us Inglesants; for all 
she can see there must be. We never did have 
enough money, but we’re going to have less. 
Now I never seem to take in what that means; I 
always know we’re coming out on top, because we 
always do, or if not on top we get lovely clear 
places on the bottom. You know how it is ; we’ve 
talked of it before, and you never care what 
happens either. Yet, I suppose it will mean some- 
thing if we get poorer, and once in a while I get 
a glimmer of an idea that we ought to head off 
trouble — I don’t mean our dog — if we can. And 
there’s The Novel, just lying there, all done, and 
if it were published you know how rich authors 
get, with their six best sellers, and all. It makes 
me quite wild when I think of it; it’s almost 
wrong, like hiding your talent under a bushel and 
wrapping your light up in a napkin — no, no; I 
mean the other way, but you know what I mean.” 

Tryphosa laughed. “No wonder you get 
rattled,” she said. “I think it is maddening to 
know there’s a whole novel shut up in that house 
which you can’t get out ! Why don’t you go up 


Daddy Departs 267 

and tell Mrs. Hardtwitt all about it and ask her to 
publish it? Or does she know about it already?’' 

Gay stared at Tryphosa, yielding up her mind 
for a moment to this delightful suggestion. ^‘No; 
of course she doesn’t know about it,” she said 
slowly. “Oh, ’Phosa, if only I could !” 

“Why can’t you?” persisted Tryphosa. 

“What, show Daddy’s book to some one, when 
he isn’t willing? Be a traitor to Daddy?” cried 
Gay. “You know better than that, 'Phosa. I 
wish, oh, how I do wish, some wind would blow 
the manuscript up to the Sugawnee, to Mrs. 
Hardtwitt’s feet, but I never could or would go 
against my father’s wishes ; Fd have no right to do 
it; — if only I had !” Gay sighed heavily, for her, 
but then she laughed, pointing back over her 
shoulder in the direction from which they had 
strolled. 

There were Cocky and Hale, each with one of 
the shafts of the tiny donkey cart in his hand, 
running along the driveway, followed by Priscilla 
and Drusilla, and with Tryphena shouting like a 
crazy girl, and even dignified Rosamond running 
and laughing almost like a Burroughs herself. 
For erect in the cart, cap on head, red jacket 


268 Daddy’s Daughters 

around shoulders, reins, apparently, in hand, rode 
Noddy Longears, unsmiling, it is true, but with 
every mark, save that, of pleasure and amusement. 

Tryphosa uttered a war-whoop. “Turn about 
is fair-play!” she cried, and started full tear after 
the cavalcade, closely followed by Gay, The Novel 
entirely forgotten for the moment by both in the 
immediate rapture of the fantastic present. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE TRYALS TRY 

'‘TT TELL, if you say so,” said Tryphosa re- 

V V luctantly to her twin. The proposition 
which they had been discussing had originated in 
Tryphosa’s active brain, yet when it came to fac- 
ing it as a settled thing even Tryphosa had doubts. 
It was such a serious matter to take upon them- 
selves ! 

“I do say so,” said Tryphena. “Of course it 
may make an awful row, and of course we are at- 
tending to anybody’s business rather than our 
own, but I say try it ! Even though we do rush in 
where angels fear to tread.” 

“Yet nobody ever did mistake us for angels,” 
observed Tryphosa, as if that explained and justi- 
fied the present situation. 

“We’ll get the girls to let us take up their 
flowers,” said Tryphena. “We’ll walk up and 
have Noddy Longears bring the flowers in the lit- 
tle cart. I think we shall make a hit.” 

269 


270 Daddy’s Daughters 

“Or get hit later/' Tryphosa added with un- 
accustomed gloom. 

Rosamond and Gay were very glad to let the 
twins take their place the following morning, even 
though it was the Sugawnee day. “My Loan” 
had departed, Amos was about again, but not fully 
recovered, and the Inglesant girls jumped at the 
chance to stay at home to help him slip and pot the 
winter plants which every year filled with glorious 
bloom the window in the small room over the fan 
transom of the front door. 

“You never could tell Tryphena and Tryphosa 
apart, but they look more alike than ever this 
morning,” said Gay, watching the twins as they 
marched down the driveway with Noddy's reins 
hung over Tryphosa’s arm, and the little fellow 
meekly coming after them with his diminutive cart 
laden with blossoms. 

“Now aren’t they ridiculous?” demanded Rosa- 
mond with great delight. “To walk all the way 
up to the Sugawnee, when they can take Gustavus 
Adolphus as well as not, all for the sake of being 
funny! I never saw anything like that whole 
family, and the way they will put themselves out 
to any extent for a joke 1” 


The Tryals Try 271 

‘They don’t put themselves out; they put them- 
selves in — into the joke, and it would tire them 
more to drive up probably than it does to climb the 
hills playing a prank. Daddy’s about right when 
he calls the Burroughs chronic comedians. I 
think they’re just Boons, with a big B. Come, 
Rose-of-the-world ; it’s time we were slipping.” 

Gay ran off to get the gardening gloves upon 
which Rosamond insisted for their work, and the 
Tryals disappeared from sight around the turn. 

The shout that greeted them as they slowly 
wound up the driveway of the Sugawnee satisfied 
even these madcaps’ aspirations. 

“Mrs. Hardtwitt, Mrs. Hardtwitt, hurry out! 
The pretty girls didn’t come this morning, but that 
red-haired one’s here, only she’s two, and there’s 
a donkey!” they heard the small boy who had 
previously been on the watch when Tryphosa 
visited the hotel shouting madly through the 
corridor. 

Mrs. Hardtwitt must have hastened obediently, 
for she came out the door in an instant and the 
Tryals were gratified by the way she laughed. 

“ ‘Double, double, toil and trouble !’ ” gasped 
the wife of the great publisher. “But I do not 


272 Daddy’s Daughters 

see how any amount of toil and trouble could have 
so thoroughly doubled you ! Are there two girls, 
or is there one and that morsel of a donkey a 
magician ? And if he is bewitching us into think- 
ing that we see two Tryphosa Burroughs, which is 
she?’^ 

‘‘I am, Mrs. Hardtwitt; this is Tryphena, the 
twin of my soul,” said Tryphosa. 

“The twin of your body she certainly is,” said 
Mrs. Hardtwitt. “I did not know there were two 
pairs of twins in your family — the little ones do 
not look alike.” 

“We do,” said Tryphena unnecessarily, slipping 
behind her sister and standing at her left instead 
of at her right to prove that, except she had seen 
the movement, Mrs. Hardtwitt would not have 
known that the two girls had changed places. 

“Oh, you needn’t do that! I never could tell 
which was the girl I knew, never,” said Mrs. 
Hardtwitt. “And that dear little, mild little 
beastie drooping there ! I suppose the Inglesants 
are busy, that you came in their stead? Malone 
tells me that they are well, but that their father is 
away.” 

“Well, Mrs. Hardtwitt, it isn’t quite that; we 


The Tryals Try 273 

begged them to let us come because we wanted to 
see you — alone, please.” Tryphosa spoke, nudg- 
ing Tryphena to support her statement. 

'‘Yes, we did,” Tryphena therefore corrob- 
orated her. “Quite alone, and on important 
business.” 

“Dear me !” exclaimed Mrs. Hardtwitt. “Dis- 
tribute the flowers then, and afterward I will lead 
you to the most secluded spot I know.” 

The Tryals hastened to dispose of their stock; 
it did not take long, and they tied Noddy Long- 
ears within sight of the piazza, for all the 
children in the hotel had formed an adoring 
circle around him and he seemed likely to be 
kidnapped. 

“Now, pray tell me what is wrong — Tryphesa! 
You must have a composite name, made up of 
both of your names, like a composite photograph,” 
said Mrs. Hardtwitt, standing with her hands be- 
hind her back looking at her duplicate guests, 
wholly in the dark as to which was which. 

“They call us the Tryals at home,” said Try- 
phena. 

“I can imagine it!” said Mrs. Hardtwitt 
solemnly. “Is there anything wrong with my 


274 Daddy’s Daughters 

little friends that you are here to-day, wishing to 
consult me ?” 

“No, not exactly,” said Tryphosa, rather fright- 
ened by what she had undertaken, and adminis- 
tering a vigorous pinch to her twin, who showed 
no disposition to explain. 

“But — well, their father has written a novel; 
he’s been ten years doing it and he doesn’t mean 
to publish it. Gay told me she would give any- 
thing if he only would show it to some one; she’s 
sure it’s a great book, and by-and-by they’ll proba- 
bly be badly off if they don’t get richer than they 
are now. I wanted her to talk to you, but she said 
she couldn’t do anything her father wasn’t willing 
that she should do, so I, we, thought, we said, that 
is — Tryphena, why for pity’s sake don’t you talk 
too?” Tryphosa broke off to glare reproachfully 
at the other Tryal. 

“Yes, all right. We thought if you saw the 
book maybe you could tell whether your husband 
could publish it, or something like that,” said Try- 
phena, honourably, if not brilliantly, taking her 
share in the venture. 

Mrs. Hardtwitt began to pace the grass with 
long, swift strides, looking very much excited 


275 


The Tryals Try 

‘‘Why, my dear Ruby doublets, she said, and the 
Tryals uttered a shout of delight, appreciating the 
fact that their tawny hair had won them a new and 
joyful nickname. “Do you know what you are 
saying to me, to me a publisher’s wife? You are 
telling me that an author has arisen, if he can be 
said to have arisen who tries to keep down out of 
sight, of whose work nobody knows anything, and 
who may be the Great Man for whom all pub- 
lishers are seeking! Of course Hardtwitt and 
Vellum can bring out the novel if it is worth 
while.” 

“Could you tell if they would want it, if you 
saw it?” asked Tryphosa almost timidly — for her. 

“I’ll let you into a professional secret,” said 
Mrs. Hardtwitt, pausing in her rapid pacing of 
the small arbour. “When a manuscript has 
passed the readers for Hardtwitt and Vellum, it 
is often referred to me for a final decision. If I 
were to read this novel of Mr. Inglesant’s and ap- 
prove it, and should send it to my husband with 
my verdict that here was something that he 
wanted, it would be published.” 

“Oh, my goodness!” cried the Tryals as one 
girl. “Then it’s easy.” 


276 Daddy’s Daughters 

“You can bring it to me?” asked Mrs. Hard- 
twitt. 

“Oh, yes!” cried the Tryals. Then they 
stopped short, giving each other a hasty look. 
How could they bring it to her? Figuratively, 
they shook themselves, shaking off the sudden 
doubt that had assailed them before Mrs. Hard- 
twitt’s sharp eyes could see it. She did not see it, 
for she said with evident pleasure: “Come now, 
that’s good! I will read it at once; it will not 
take me more than twenty-four hours, and you 
shall be told immediately what I think of it. To 
think that Rosamond and Gay’s ‘Daddy-dear,’ of 
whom they are constantly talking, should prove so 
doubly interesting — a most charming man! If 
he writes as he talks, my Ruby doublets, you have 
put the house of Hardtwitt and Vellum under an 
obligation to you ! Bring me the novel as soon as 
you can get it here.” She turned with her crisp 
decision, giving a hand to each Tryal, with a 
whimsical glance that conveyed her sense of its 
being like shaking hands twice with one person, 
and went away, leaving the Tryals dismissed to 
the solving of a problem that began to loom gigan- 
tic before their eyes. 


The Tryals Try 277 

Slowly they retraced their steps to where 
Noddy Longears awaited them, untied.the patient 
little fellow, and began their pilgrimage afoot 
down the hill behind him. It seemed to the 
Tryals that Noddy drooped more than he ever had 
before, and the sanguine temperament popularly 
supposed to belong to their complexion deserted 
them; they might have been blue-black-haired for 
all the hope that was in their breasts. For how 
were they to persuade Rosamond and Gay into 
giving them the manuscript of the novel ? As to 
waiting until Mr. Inglesant returned and coaxing 
him to let Mrs. Hardtwitt have it, that was ob- 
viously impossible. 

'‘You know, Thosa, we might as well save our 
breath,” said Tryphena; the Tryals had a trick of 
answering each other’s unspoken thoughts. 
"Rosamond and Gay will not help us. They’ll be 
dying to give the story to Mrs. Hardtwitt, but if 
they are dying they’ll just die, that’s all; they 
won’t take a manuscript that their father doesn’t 
want seen.” 

"I know that,” sighed Tryphosa. "To tell the 
honest truth I wouldn’t if I were they. But what’s 
to be done then ?” 


278 Daddy's Daughters 

“Steal it,” said Tryphena as calmly as if she 
were proposing to poach an egg, instead of to 
poach, in the other sense, something much more 
important. 

“Mehitabel Hampshire!!!” ejaculated Try- 
phosa in an exclamation of her own invention, and 
with no less than three exclamation points in her 
voice. 

“Borrow it by force and on the sly,” said Try- 
phena, nodding hard. “It is all right for us to do 
it; the girls couldn’t because it’s their Daddy and 
they’re his daughters, but we’re only the Bur- 
roughs girls next door, and we can presume on our 
reputation for mischief. So we’ll take that novel 
— if we can find it, ’Phosa, and we’ll carry it up 
to the Sugawnee to get it published.” 

“But ” began Tryphosa, rather staggered 

by this boldness on the part of her double. 

“But me no buts!” said Tryphena disdainfully. 
“It won’t be published, of course, without Mr. In- 
glesant’s permission, so what’s the harm? Only 
that Mrs. Hardtwitt will have read it! I think 
very likely Mr. Inglesant will be dreadfully angry, 
and it will be horrid enough for a while. But he 
won’t stay angry with two fifteen-year-olds, twins 


The Tryals Try 279 

at that, and the fuss will all blow over. If the 
book isn’t published no harm will be done; if it is, 
look at the good that will be done — so there you 
are ! I say we must risk it !” 

Tryphosa stood still by the wayside to look 
with admiration at Tryphena. 

“Something within me breast disapproves our 
course, Tryphena,” she said melodramatically. 
“But I’ll do your bidding. You should have been 
named after the Revolutionary heroes; not the 
boys.” 

Noddy Longears turned in at the Inglesants’ 
gate, and Sibyl was watching for the Tryals at 
the door. “We’re waiting luncheon for you,” she 
called. “Hurry up; Mary Frances has made a 
huckleberry pie so deep that we are going to serve 
it with soup spoons.” 

The Tryals gladly accepted this invitation; it 
fitted very well with their felonious designs on the 
manuscript hidden away somewhere in the dark 
library. 

Rosamond was in that room as the twins 
entered the house. Sibyl went on down the hall 
to the dining-room, but the Tryals halted in the 
doorwav. 


28 o 


Daddy’s Daughters 

Rosamond looked up; she was bending over her 
father’s desk, dust-cloth in hand, and just closing 
a leather portfolio. 

‘‘This is Daddy-dear’s novel,” she said, touch- 
ing the case as she turned to greet the Tryals 
with her sweet smile. “Only think how 
long he has worked over it, and here it lies 
finished !” 

“Have you been peeping at it?” asked Try- 
phena. 

“Of course not ! But you didn’t mean that,’.’ 
said Rosamond, beginning impatiently, but ending 
with a tiny laugh. “Daddy knows that we would 
not look at it till he shows it to us; the desk is not 
even locked.” 

Tryphena and Tryphosa each saw the colour 
sweep up to the other’s hair; it was painful to 
mean so well and feel so guilty. They were glad 
to follow Rosamond upstairs for the refreshment 
of water and brushes before luncheon. 

The Inglesant girls wondered at the subdued 
manner of the Tryals during that never-to-be-for- 
gotten meal; none of the Burroughs, not even 
Priscilla, had ever been seen so quiet before, least 
of all the uproarious Tryals. 


zSi 


The Tryals Try 

Tryphosa went to the library after dinner alone, 
but Gay almost immediately followed her, and 
marvelled at the nervous, not to say guilty start 
with which her friend turned when she entered. 
Tryphosa borrowed a book; Gay did not see her 
carefully drop her handkerchief near the desk be- 
fore she left the room. 

‘‘Walk over with us, at least as far as the 
hedge,’' said Tryphena, and Rosamond, Gay, and 
Sibyl strolled slowly across the grass, Tryphena 
leading Noddy, whose size allowed him to go back 
and forth as well through the hedge as by the 
driveway. 

“Oh, my handkerchief!” exclaimed Tryphosa. 
“I must have left it in the library! You go on, 
girls; ril run back and get it in a jiffy.” 

She shot back over the lawn and into the house. 
The handkerchief lay where she had dropped it in 
front of Mr. Inglesant’s desk. She stooped to 
pick it up, and glanced hastily over her shoulder. 
No one was in sight; she heard Mary Frances rat- 
tling dishes in the pantry, and heard Anstiss sing- 
ing upstairs about some of her many little employ- 
ments. Tryphosa raised the lid of the desk, drew 
out the precious portfolio, slipped it into her 


282 Daddy's Daughters 

blouse-fronted shirt waist, and fled from the house 
as though witches were after her. 

^‘Why, Thosa, you’re all out of breath, and you 
look as though you had seen a ghost !” cried Gay, 
eyeing her with wonder as she resumed her place 
at Gay’s side. 

‘‘I feel as though I had; the ghost of my 
sainted grandmother, who named me out of the 
New Testament,” said Tryphosa with a nervous 
giggle. 

‘T don’t believe your grandmother’s ghost is in 
our house,” laughed Gay. “What have you been 
up to, that you see ghosts ?” 

“Doing as I’d be done by, but it feels like 
crime,” said Tryphosa, disregarding Tryphena’s 
signals to be careful what she said. 

But Daddy’s guileless daughters were entirely 
unsuspicious, and Tryphosa’s stiffened shirt-waist 
front did not catch their eye. 

The Tryals were wholly unable to urge their 
friends to come over the boundary line as was 
their wont, and Rosamond, Gay, and Sibyl went 
back to the old house, wondering what could be 
wrong with the twins. 

As soon as they had safely disappeared Try- 


The Tryals Try 283 

phosa produced the portfolio, Tryphena helping 
her to free it from the detaining gathers of her 
waist. 

“Here it is, Thena,” said Tryphosa tragically. 
“Is it wrong?” 

“You know it isn’t; it can’t be wrong; at the 
worst it is only meddlesome, but you know we 
don’t mean it to be meddlesome,” said Tryphena, 
suddenly grown the stronger minded and bolder 
of the two. “We are borrowing, not stealing, and 
our motives are purely unselfish and lofty.” 

“Well, goodness knows, I wouldn’t do this for 
myself, and I’m far from enjoying it,” said Try- 
phosa passionately. “I feel like number forty- 
seven million, seventy-three thousand, eleven hun- 
dred and ninety-nine in the rogues’ gallery.” 

“Seems to be something wrong in those figures; 
I don’t believe they’re pointed right,” said Try- 
phena. “Now, we’ve got to get this novel up to 
the Sugawnee before we’re an hour older — chiefly 
before we’re caught with it. How shall we do 
it?” 

“Maybe mother or Vere ” Tryphosa be- 

gan, but Tryphena cut her short. 

“Now see here, ’Phosa, we’re going to get our- 


284 Daddy’s Daughters 

selves disliked for this thing, at least until it turns 
out right! I don’t want mother or the boys, or 
any one else, to know the first thing about it, then 
they aren’t responsible for whatever happens. 
We’ve got to see it through alone,” she said. 

^‘You’re right there,” assented Tryphosa. “But 
how?” 

“We’ve money of our own; let’s hire a carriage 
and go up there now before we see mother; then 
the secret is ours, and no one can blame the Bur- 
roughs family for the trials of their Tryals,” said 
Tryphena. 

“Tryphena you are proving a lady of executive 
ability,” said Tryphosa admiringly. Immediately 
adding : “And I feel like some one who was going 
to be executed. Come down to the livery stable, 
then, and we’ll get our horse saddled, ready to 
carry our plunder to our stronghold on the hills, 
like true robber barons.” 

“Wait here till I get the money,” said Try- 
phena. “And for pity’s sake let’s brace up I I’m 
sure we’re doing our best to help those who will 
not help themselves.” 

“I hope Mr. Inglesant will appreciate it,” said 
Tryphosa gloomily. 


The Tryals Try 285 

But in spite of their downheartedness the Tryals 
persevered to the very end in the enterprise on 
which they had embarked. 

Before the sun set that August evening the 
manuscript of Daddy’s novel was in Mrs. Hard- 
twitt’s hands, and the Tryals, with perturbed 
hearts, but outwardly calm, were supping with 
their family, comforting themselves with Mrs. 
Hardtwitt’s promise of a speedy verdict on the 
prospect of The Novel’s making the fortunes of 
Daddy’s daughters, and establishing Daddy’s un- 
dying fame. 


CHAPTER XIX 


OFFENCE, DEFENCE, SUSPENSE 
HE joyful duty of bringing Daddy home 



A was Gay’s. Rosamond yielded it to her, 
remaining behind to make the house beautiful 
with blossoms and fine touches, and the table 
beautiful with the finest of the damask and cut 
glass and old silver; Daddy rarely went away, but 
when he did his return was celebrated as a festi- 
val. Gay drew up old Gustavus Adolphus among 
the smart carts and impressive, if malodourous, 
automobiles which crowded around the Windsley 
station during the season. 

Gustavus Adolphus could not compete with his 
neighbours in style, but Gay found consolation in 
the fact that he did not try to compete, but stood 
— very patiently stood — on his own tried and reli- 
able merits, among which was entire lack of fear 
of anything, however it reeked of gasoline or spit 
steam. 


286 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 287 

Old Gustavus Adolphus seemed to share the joy 
of his young driver when Daddy was safely 
stowed away at her side; he actually passed 
three young horses on his way up from the station, 
though his tail moved faster keeping flies off than 
his legs trotted, in spite of his having four times 
as many legs as he had tail. 

Daddy was boyishly happy to be at home again. 
He leaned back in his chair at the table and looked 
at the four faces beaming upon him as if he could 
not look enough. 

“Fll tell you, my chickens, there’s nothing in 
all Manhattan, from the Bronx to Flatbush, that 
compares with what I have here! The Flatiron 
building is higher, and the Subway is deeper, and 
several new hotels are more imposing than you 
are, chickabiddies, but Fd rather have you!” he 
said with profound satisfaction. “What do you 
suppose I have brought home with me ?” 

“First editions,” said Sibyl wisely. 

“Indeed I have some treasures of books ! I did 
mean to bring each of you something fine, but 
some of the editions upon which I had set my 
heart were bid up higher than I expected, and 
after I had secured them there was not enough 


288 Daddy's Daughters 

left to do more than buy this one thing — it’s lucky 
I had a return ticket to Windsley!” Daddy 
laughed his light-hearted laugh, and the girls 
rippled and dimpled with enjoyment of this char- 
acteristic state of things, but Mary Frances looked 
grim and forbidding. Poor soul ! She and Amos 
were the only ones who realised what Daddy’s 
beautiful extravagances might mean in the way of 
denial and makeshifts, with which they already 
had far too many to wrestle, and out of which to 
scheme in the night hours of wakefulness, while 
the Inglesants, Daddy and Daughters, slept like 
birds rocked by the winds of heaven ! 

‘‘The treasure. Daddy?” Rosamond reminded 
him. “This one, last, best treasure ?” 

“I have it here,” said Daddy, touching his 
breast, “but I can’t show it to you now. Not at 
the table. We will go into the library, and there 
I will show you !” 

After this the children rather hurried through 
the meal, and gladly repaired to the library in 
Daddy’s train, even responsible Anstiss leaving 
Mary Frances to herself, feeling that she could 
claim exemption from duty on the night of 
Daddy’s return. 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 289 

Daddy seated himself in his big leathern chair, 
and the girls gathered around him, Rosamond on 
one arm of the chair, Sibyl on the other, both 
graceful in every line; Gay leaning over the chair 
back, and Anstiss on her knees at Daddy’s knee, 
resting her elbow on it, and her square little chin 
on her hand. 

Daddy took from his pocket a yellow sheet of 
letter paper, and reverently unfolded it, smooth- 
ing it out with the palm of one hand on the palm 
of the other, and holding it up for the children’s 
inspection. He did not speak, and Gay was the 
first to cry out in the keen joy of recognition — 
these children were born and bred hero-worship- 
pers, taught by their dreaming father. 

“It is a letter from Thackeray!” cried Gay 
with wondering awe in her voice. 

“My very daughter!” said Daddy, approving 
her quick perception. “An autograph letter of 
Thackeray’s, and I’d rather have it than a letter 
written by any other hand. He was so truly the 
great-hearted, as well as the great genius; so ten- 
der of the weak or unfortunate, so splendidly in- 
tolerant of cruelty or humbug! You will have 
to be older and sadder and wiser to appreciate 


290 


Daddy’s Daughters 

Thackeray, but isn’t it inspiring to feel that his 
warm hand sped over this paper as it lay spread 
out under those kindly blue eyes?” 

Rosamond and Gay followed their father’s 
glance up to the copy of the Lawrence portrait of 
Thackeray that hung beside his desk. They were 
as much impressed by the value of the letter that 
he had acquired as he could have desired. 

“If you would publish The Novel, Daddy,” said 
Gay softly, “people would feel to you and a letter 
of yours as we feel now about this one.” 

“You irreverent child !” laughed Daddy. “How 
dare you, Gaynor, liken any one, much less me, to 
Thackeray ?” 

“Well, something the same then,” persisted 
Gay. And Anstiss gravely corroborated her. 
“Perhaps even more,” she said with her most mat- 
ter-of-fact, sensible air. “Nobody on earth can 
tell what a great book is — I mean how great a 
book is — if nobody sees it.” 

“Why, my dear little Solomonetta, that’s the 
only way you can be sure of the greatness of at 
least two-thirds of the books that are written!” 
Daddy mocked her. 

After the girls had left him, which they did 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 291 

before long, Mr. Inglesant sat in the shorter 
August twilight absently stroking and regarding 
the Thackeray letter. At last he arose and opened 
his desk. He began turning over the papers in 
its top, then he rapidly opened and tossed about 
the contents of each of the desk’s drawers, and 
then he hurried to the door. 

“Rosamond, Gay, come here !” he cried. 

There was a muffled sound of excitement in his 
voice that brought not only the two girls whom 
he called, but the younger two running down the 
hall to him at once. 

“Where have you put The Novel?” their father 
demanded before they had reached his side. 

“Why, Daddy, you frightened me!” said Rosa- 
mond, relieved. “In the top of your desk. You 
left it in the writing-table drawer, and I laid it 
away in the desk.” 

“It’s not there,” said Daddy. 

Rosamond looked at him, startled, then rallied. 
“Why, yes, it is. Daddy-dear; I put it there my- 
self,” she said. 

“Find it,” said her father. 

Rosamond laid down the lid of the old desk, 
lifted a paper or two, and turned around, quite 


292 Daddy’s Daughters 

white. “It was just here,” she said. “It could 
not be hidden, in that portfolio as it was. Who 
has taken it ?” 

Her eye fell on Gaynor, the only one of the four 
that ever played tricks, but Gay flashed back at her 
indignantly: “You don’t suppose I would touch 
The Novel, do you?” 

“Of course not,” said her father. “Not one of 
you would touch it. Yet it is gone; who has been 
here?” 

The girls looked puzzled, distressed. “No one 
has been here,” began Rosamond slowly, but Gay 
took the words out of her mouth. “Except Try- 
phosa,” she said. “Do you think Tryphosa could 

have Do you remember how she came back 

for her handkerchief that day, and how queer she 
was? And when I spoke of going to the Su- 
gawnee yesterday, instead of to the Antlers, how 
anxious she seemed not to have me change days?” 

“Do you mean to imply, Gaynor, that you sus- 
pect Tryphosa Burroughs of stealing my novel — 
coming here and stealing my manuscript ? Why 
should she, why would slie do such a thing?” Mr. 
Inglesant demanded, half inclined to be annoyed 
with Gay for a base and unjust suspicion. 



“It was Just Here,’’ She Said. 







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Offence, Defence, Suspense 293 

“Not to keep, Daddy; of course not! And 
maybe she didn’t do it, but — I’m going over 
there!” And before anybody could object Gay 
had darted out of the room, and across the lawn. 

The moment that the twins saw her coming they 
knew — as Tryphena elegantly expressed it — that 
“the jig was up.” They came to meet her, not 
because they were in the least impatient to do so, 
but because they wanted to get her out of hearing 
of the rest of the family. 

“’Phosa, did you take Daddy’s novel?” de- 
manded Gay at once. There never was anything 
circuitous about Gay’s methods. 

“I borrowed it,” admitted Tryphosa. 

“What for? How dared you? You knew 
nobody, not even we, might see it!” cried Gay. 
“Where is it? Get it for me this moment.” 

“Now, Gay, do you suppose we took that story 
to read?” asked Tryphosa in an injured tone. 
“As though we were curious, and as though there 
weren’t enough books printed, if we wanted to 
read! We took that book to show Mrs. Hard- 
twitt. She promised to read it right off, and she 
did it. We got her note about it to-day. She 
says it’s great; she’s going to write your father 


^94 Daddy’s Daughters 

straight away. She says Hardtwitt and Vellum 
will jump at the chance to publish it, on any terms, 
and she told me that she had to decide what they’d 
take after all the other people they kept to read 
had read the stories people sent them. I took the 
book because you couldn’t, and you were so 
anxious to have it come out, and you said by-and- 
by you might be badly off if there wasn’t more 
money for you. And now you will be rich. Mrs. 
Hardtwitt will send the book to her husband, and 
money will come pouring in, and your father will 
be famous, with little scraps about him in all the 
papers; how he walks and sits, and how he likes 
his eggs cooked, and how long Gustavus Adolphus 
has been in his family, and the old silver and 
mahogany, and his lovely little girls, and how 
Trouble sits up to beg, and how black Pickaninny 
is, and all those things — you know how you read 
all those interesting things about the habits of 
great authors in the papers!” Tryphosa paused, 
not because she had exhausted her line of defence, 
but because her breath gave out. 

As to Gay, she was leaning up against a tree, 
more breathless than Tryphosa, her face changing 
from one to another hue, in all sorts of shades. 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 295 

“Speak, Gay!” cried Tryphena melodramati- 
cally. “We did it out of pure kindness. The 
very worst that your father can say of us is that 
we were meddlesome and impertinent, but it only 
seems that we were; we aren’t, of course. We 
wanted to help you, and we are ready to take the 
blame and the consequences. But you’d better 
see how you can coax your father to let the book 
be published. Tell him that it’s been read, any- 
how, and now it might as well go on being read, 

and tell him Don’t let him be hard on the 

Burroughs twins; they did it for your sake I Per- 
haps he’ll see it right. And don’t let him blame 
any other Burroughs but us; not a living soul 
knows anything about it; not one of the boys, nor 
any one. You’re not mad, are you. Gay?” 

“I don’t feel mad,” said Gay carefully. “I feel 
stunned. Of course it would be perfectly glorious 
if Daddy would let it go I I don’t see what made 
you think of going to Mrs. Hardtwitt. You’ve 
done an awful thing, but I do feel half grateful, 
though I know how dreadful it was, and you never 
can know. I must go back. Good-bye, Tryals.” 

“You speak as though you were never coming 
again,” protested Tryphosa in a shaky voice. 


296 Daddy^s Daughters 

“Very likely I can’t come,” said Gay with a 
responsive tremor. “Daddy will be deeply of- 
fended, the way he is if he ever cares at all. He 
may forbid our coming here. I’m sure I don’t 
know what will happen, but I shan’t feel unkindly, 
however I have to act. I know how crazy you 
are, and how well you mean everything. Good- 
bye.” 

She turned and retraced her steps slowly, drag- 
ging the feet that had come so fast. 

“We know about it,” said Rosamond, meeting 
her in the doorway. “My Loan rode down from 
the Sugawnee just after you left, with a note from 
Mrs. Hardtwitt. I never heard of such a thing as 
Tryphosa has done! But, oh. Gay, you can’t 
imagine what Mrs. Hardtwitt says of The Novel ! 
She says there hasn’t been anything so beautiful, 
such exquisite style, such delicate humour, such 
piercing tenderness and pathos, in years. She 
says our Daddy has no right to withhold it from 
the world, for our sakes, if not for his own and his 
readers’. She says she can answer for Hardtwitt 
and Vellum’s taking it on Daddy’s terms, what- 
ever they are, and she begs him to consent at 
once to her sending the book right on to 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 297 

her husband, but she holds it until Daddy 
shall reply. My Loan didn’t wait for an 
answer, luckily, for Daddy would have sent 
a refusal in one unbreakable line, he was so angry, 
so hurt, so stirred. And, Gay, oh Gay, I’m so 
stirred up too I can’t breathe ! Daddy feels as if 
something sacred were being profaned when any 
one speaks of publishing, and worse, of making 
money out of that book ! I feel sure it has some- 
thing to do with our mother, and her going, and 
his love for her ! Daddy says he would prefer us 
not to have anything more to do with a young girl 
who has acted as Tryphosa has done. He’ll for- 
give her by-and-by, but he is very much annoyed 
now. If only we can get him to publish this won- 
derful book !” Rosamond’s face was white, and 
the hands which she laid on Gay’s shoulder were 
trembling. Gay put her arm around her and 
drew her into the dining room. Here were Amos 
and Mary Frances, who had just learned the 
amazing news from the two younger Inglesants, 
of whom Anstiss was full of a sort of serious- 
minded, triumphant anxiety, if that is not too long 
a description of the sensations of a small girl, and 
Sibyl was elated past control. 


298 Daddy’s Daughters 

Amos looked as if he could not bring his mind 
fully to bear on the various aspects of the case, 
but Mary Frances’ face was shining. 

“Talk about that twin’s behavin’ bad,” she said. 
“She’s a raven, that’s what she is ! It’s as clear 
a case of Providence providin’ as ever ’twas when 
Elijah was fed. I guess he must accept the offer ! 
We’ll let him rest on it to-night, but in the mornin’ 
I’m goin’ to talk to him, and I’ll see if I can’t make 
your gifted father understand that there’s ten 
mills in every cent, and a hundred cents in every 
dollar. The main trouble with Stanley Inglesant 
always was that he’s chock-full of book learnin’ 
but he never knew his tables — not to sense ’em, 
that is. We’ll get Miss Wrenn over too. There 
don’t one human bein’ but Amos and me know 
how tight a squeeze it’s been to keep up the 
Inglesant Place and the family dignity, and 
with four growin’ girls there’s no option on 
bein’ choice about publishin’ what you’ve written. 
Why, that novel, from what the children 
say, might bring Stanley Inglesant a thousand 
dollars!” 

“A thousand, Mary Frances!” cried Gay. 
“Why, they say, I read in the paper, that on^ 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 299 

writer made forty thousand out of one book 
lately!” 

“Forty times as much reason for bein’ sensible 
then. Not that that’s likely though,” said Mary 
Frances promptly, but Rosamond saw that she 
changed colour. 

Early in the morning Sibyl was dispatched to 
ask Miss Wrenn to come up to help the Inglesant 
girls in their difficulty, as usual. She and Mary 
Frances, two clear-brained, devoted women, each 
in her way, and each speaking with the voice of 
authority in a different key, were closeted with 
Daddy for a long time, while the girls prowled the 
house, demoralised and purposeless, entirely for- 
getful of the daily trip to the hills, and of the 
flowers waiting them in the ice house. 

At last the library door opened, and Daddy’s 
voice called : “Rosamond, Gaynor, children, where 
are you ? Come to your poor Daddy !” 

“He’s given in!” cried Gay, quick to detect 
symptoms in her father’s voice, and clutching 
Rosamond frantically. 

The four girls came slowly down the hall; they 
rather dreaded, for the first time in their memory, 
to face their Daddy. 


300 Daddy’s Daughters 

They found him pale, dark circles under his 
eyes, his hands cold, his fine hair tumbled by the 
frequent running of his fingers through its thick 
masses. He was a handsome Daddy, as well as 
the dearest one in the world. Gay thought with a 
quick heart-throb. Miss Wrenn looked as tired 
as if she had been leading a siege, as indeed she 
had. Mary Frances’ roughened cheeks were pur- 
ple, but her expression was triumphant; for the 
first time in her long, devoted care of them all she 
had been able to make the head of the Inglesants 
understand his situation. 

‘T have capitulated, Rosamond; Gay, it is to be 
as you desire,” he said, holding out his arms to his 
eldest daughters. 

Rosamond gently laid hers over his shoulders. 
^Tt would not be right to hide your genius, 
dearest,” she said. 

But Gay plunged into her Daddy’s arms with 
her customary impetuosity, and cried, responding 
to something that she read in his eyes : '‘Don’t do 
it. Daddy ! Don’t let the blessed book go ! What 
do we care for money, or anything, only your 
wishes?” 

“It was a sentiment, little daughter; the book 


Offence, Defence, Suspense 301 

stands for something that I would not have made 
public, but I see it is right to accept such a chance 
— for your sakes. And the something I would 
not make public, the public will never read in my 
little book, so what does it matter, after all ? The 
die is cast; The Novel is to be printed; here is my 
letter to Mrs. Hardtwitt telling her so. Miss 
Winnie and Mary Frances have shown me my 
duty !” Daddy smiled as he spoke, and held up a 
note addressed in his fine hand, and sealed with 
his ring and the Inglesant crest. 

“Oh!” gasped Gay, and she and Rosamond 
looked at each other in solemn joy. 

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Sibyl raptur- 
ously. “Then you might as well forgive Try- 
phosa ; she did do good, after all,” she immediately 
added. 

Daddy laughed. “Certainly, we forgive Try- 
phosa — and Tryphena too! It would be too in- 
consistent to do otherwise. And after all she is 
but Gay's age! Fll send her over an olive, 
wrapped in white tissue paper, since I have no 
olive branch, and tell her peace reigns between us, 
and through the hedge. And at the same time 
ask those officious twins to tea. It was an out- 


302 Daddy’s Daughters 

rageous thing to do, but they seem to have 
founded the prosperity of our family as truly as 
those other twins founded Rome. How shall we 
play the role of Successful Author and His 
Daughters, lassies?’^ 

“We won’t; we’ll keep on just being Daddy’s 
Daughters,” said Anstiss. “But it’s going to be 
heaps of fun !” 

“Oh, kiddie, kiddie, there spake the voice of a 
prophet !” cried Gay, her spirits suddenly mount- 
ing out of sight. “It’s you who ought to be the 
Sibyl of this family !” 

“How did you get him to say yes, dearest Miss 
Winnie?” asked Rosamond, as they watched 
Daddy, who had walked out on the lawn from one 
of the long windows in the library, with a motion 
of head and shoulders as if he longed to escape 
into the fresh air. 

“Oh, I pecked at him and chattered, like a true 
wren,” said Miss Winnie. “Run away, and take 
this note to Mrs. Hardtwitt. Oh, my dear little 
girls, you don’t fully realise what a beautiful thing 
has happened, beautiful equally for your Daddy 
and his daughters !” 


CHAPTER XX 


BUT, AFTER AL] 


RE you old, Mary Frances?’’ inquired 



Anstiss. She was seated beside the 


kitchen table, or rather kneeling on the chair seat 
beside it, propping her chin in her hands in her 
favourite fashion, and was intently watching 
Mary Frances as she briskly rolled out the rich 
wafers made after a recipe inherited from Anstiss’ 
Great-grandmother Randolph, of Virginia. It 
had occurred to the little girl for the first time in 
her life that Mary Frances looked almost young, 
but she put the question in its less attractive form. 

Mary Frances swiftly calculated the number of 
cookies possible to this latest rolling of her dough 
before she swooped down on it with the cutter, 
and at the same time answered: “Depends on 
what you call old. I guess Mis’ Andrews, down 
by the bake-shop, she that’s goin’ on ninety-four, 
would call me a girl, but as I’m most four times 
your age I guess you’d call me old.” 


Daddy’s Daughters 


304 

“Because,” Anstiss continued, having heard and 
absorbed the answer, but going on with her 
thoughts in her own way, “you look young to-day 
— as if you were young inside, you know.” 

“Well, that’s the only way it’s worth while bein’ 
young,” said Mary Frances with a short laugh. 
“I feel about ten years younger minded that I did 
before this happened. I feel about as that man 
would have if he’d shaken the world off his back — 
Geography ? Map ? What was his name ?” 

“Atlas,” said Anstiss without a smile. “Yes; 
so do I, and Amos must too. Which china to- 
night, Mary Frances? Rosamond told me to ask 
you, and I forgot all about it watching those fas- 
cinating cookies.” 

“The thin white, with the sprigs,” said Mary 
Frances. “If we’re goin’ to use all the old things, 
that set’s older’n the gold-banded.” 

“All right, but the cups haven’t any handles,” 
sighed Anstiss, though she did not use tea. 
“Don’t forget the pennants, Mary Frances.” 
Then she ran away. 

Mary Frances never did “forget the pennants,” 
which were the wedge-shaped bits between the 
round cookies, baked for the children from their 


But, after All ! 305 

earliest memory. She arranged them in her pan 
now with a loving smile; her face was brighterted 
and softened by the prospect of relief from 
anxiety. 

The good that had come out of their — well, not 
evil, but mistaken kindness, had been promptly 
imparted to Tryphena and Tryphosa by the In- 
glesants, together with the olive which Daddy 
actually had sent to them, wrapped in a Japanese 
napkin, as a pledge of peace and forgiveness. But 
the informal bidding to come over and receive his 
pardon in person had been replaced by something 
more important. 

The Inglesants were to give a party. The offer 
for The Novel had been formally made by the 
great house of Hardtwitt and Vellum, and for- 
mally accepted. The terms were such that Daddy 
was rich in the present, at least to the eyes of his 
family, and the future held almost any possi- 
bilities. 

With characteristic gaiety of heart, now that 
the matter was really settled. Daddy threw off all 
recollection of his dislike to the publication of the 
result of his years of hidden labour. He basked 
in the sunshine it had brought to him, just as he 


306 Daddy’s Daughters 

had always basked in the best that he had, shutting 
his eyes to a lack so carelessly, and passing over 
bare spots with so light a touch that those who 
knew him best could not be sure whether he did 
it unconsciously, or with resolution. 

Seventeen people were to sit down to supper in 
the Inglesant dining room; not for many a day 
had it held so many guests. All the Burroughs, 
of course, and Mrs. Hardtwitt were asked, and 
Miss Wrenn was ''not so much asked as built 
upon,” as Rosamond said. Rosamond and Gay 
put in a plea for Gladys, and Gladys meant her 
mother too, so the Plummers were coming. It 
was not a wide spread party, but, when one family 
numbered eight it was certain to be a fairly large 
one. 

Miss Wrenn’s rosy-cheeked Irish maids were 
borrowed to help Mary Frances and to wait, and 
Mary Frances inveigled her distant cousin, the 
Widow Henning, a famous cook, into coming up 
to make a chicken salad as she alone, in all Wind- 
sley, could make it. 

Something leaped and fluttered in Rosamond’s 
breast as she surveyed the long mahogany table 
extended as such a glorious specimen of sump- 


But, after All ! 307 

tuous wood was intended to extend, hospitably 
ready for its friends. It was laden with price- 
less old china, silver, even a few pieces of the 
pewter came down to disport themselves among 
more precious metal, entirely worthy because they 
were so venerable. 

How good it was to be the daughter of this 
noble old house, how better it was to be Daddy’s 
daughter, who was going to crown the ancient 
rooftree with his fame ! 

Trouble came in proud, though miserable, 
bedecked in an immense frill that surrounded his 
neck like a Pantaloon’s frill. The little dog knew 
that he was in festive attire, and it gratified his 
vanity while it irritated his nose; pending his de- 
cision whether he was wretched or delighted he 
sat up and begged for Mary Frances’ buttery 
cookies, and received a “pennant” from each of the 
girls. 

Anstiss tied a shining yellow ribbon around 
Pickaninny’s neck; it made a fine Princetonian 
combination with the black kitten, but it did not 
console him for the chicken salad which he sniffed, 
inaccessible in the pantry. Daddy’s four daugh- 
ters were in white, and Gay, coming down later 


308 Daddy’s Daughters 

than the others from a whirlwind toilette, found 
Rosamond so much more lovely than she remem- 
bered her as being upstairs that she was moved to 
crush her in an embrace that did not reckon on the 
flimsiness of mull. The Burroughs came over 
through the hedge, or at least Drusilla and Pris- 
cilla did, escorted by Cocky and Hale. Mrs. Bur- 
roughs came around by the road with Vere; he 
was going away to college in less than a week, 
which thought was the only damper on the joy of 
the occasion. Nobody seemed inclined to say 
where Tryphena and Tryphosa were when the In- 
glesants inquired; they had to be satisfied with the 
information that they were coming. In the mean 
time the girls’ attention was diverted by the ar- 
rival of Mrs. Plummer and Gladys, perfectly 
gorgeous to behold, the one in a lavender silk, 
with many diamonds, the other in a brilliant red- 
dish-pink silk, beaded all down the edge of its lace 
front, which held more stick-pins in its meshes 
than any one could have believed one girl could 
wear. Close upon them came Mrs. Hardtwitt, 
driven down by '‘My Loan,” and the proximity of 
“My Loan” and his unclaimed cousins was thrill- 
ing to the young hostesses. Gladys got hold of 


But, after All ! 

Gay and dragged her away into an inaudible 
corner. 

“Gay/’ she said so earnestly that Gay could not 
laugh, “Ma thinks that Mr. Malone has been very 
nice not to say anything about his being a relation 
— to us, you know. And when she said that I 
struck while the iron was hot; I do want so much 
to be honest and nice and kind, you know ! So I 
got Ma to say I might go talk to him, and I did. 
I found out that he had nine children — now, will 
you please only think of that! Two more than 
the Burroughs, who always seem such an awful 
lot I Maybe they’re quieter; I do hope so for Mrs. 
Malone’s sake I Well, Ma lets me have an allow- 
ance to do what I please with — it’s so much I’d 
be ashamed to tell you how much it is. So I’m 
going to send the oldest girl to school. He says 
she’s very bright indeed, and wants to be a teacher. 
And Ma says she’ll educate the next two — they’re 
boys — and give them a trade, and when they’re 
through, we’re going to take the next three, till 
we get all the Malones taught. It will take a 
good while, because they’re younger than I am, 
coming-along-ones are, but very likely I’ll live 
to finish ’em. And I’m going to send clothes to 


310 Daddy’s Daughters 

them all twice a year, summer things and winter 
things, you know, and sort of look after that 
family. I hope you think that’s all right; Ma 
won’t let me talk about them, but she’s good, you 
know.” 

Gay’s face was a study as she followed this 
rapid unfolding of good deeds to come. 

“Of course it is right, Gladys; it’s as right as 
it can be, and I’m sure My Lo — Mr. Malone will 
be very glad he has such a cousin,” she said. 

Gladys looked half pleased, half dissatisfied. 
“It’s the best I can do,” she sighed. “It doesn’t 
please me exactly; I feel as though I ought to go 
out there to the stable and take his hand and lead 
him in, and say: ‘This is my cousin!’ But I 
can’t.” 

“Well, hardly!” said Gay, laughing outright. 
“Only fancy the tableau ! ‘Come to me arms, me 
long lost Cousin Malone!’ Oh dear! You’re a 
funny girl, Gladys, but you’re really very nice! 
The only thing you can do now is to be good to the 
Malones, and obey your parents, as your catechism 
teaches you.” 

“I’m going to be honest, and I’m going to be 
kind,” said Gladys determinedly. 


But, after All ! 3 1 1 

Cocky came along that moment, and caught 
these words. ^‘You’re going to be almost Old 
Dog Tray,'’ he said. “He was faithful, he was 
kind, you know. I’ve been looking everywhere 
for you. Gay; I think the Tryals are coming, 
and will want you to be there to escort them to 
your father to be pardoned.” 

“I’m perfectly certain those girls are up to 
something!” cried Gay, darting off followed by 
Gladys. But Cocky caught the latter’s arm. 
“No; you stay here, Gladys,” he said. “The 
Tryals are in costume, and nobody but Gay must 
be with them when they appear.” 

“In costume” did not seem to be an adequate 
description. Soon after her leaving the house Gay 
returned to it, her face, which was any colour and 
any expression save its natural one, badly con- 
torted by her heroic efforts not to laugh. Noddy 
Longears came after her, drawing a board, on the 
principle of a stone-drag, on which sat two shape- 
less figures bowed till their heads touched their 
knees. These figures were clad in something like 
an immense bag, extending from their heads to 
their feet, and made out of sacking. On the tops 
of each, where one would conjecture the crown 


312 Daddy’s Daughters 

of the head would come, if these sacks covered 
human beings, was a great black smooch of ashes, 
worn ostentatiously. 

“Daddy, will you please come out ?’' Gay called 
to her father through the long window. “I think 
everybody may come too; I have two penitents 
here, and I think their penance ought to be 
public.’’ 

Mr. Inglesant came out looking puzzled, and 
all the guests came too. Miss Wrenn gave 
a little scream of delight, instantly guessing 
the joke in progress, and Mrs. Burroughs 
leaned up against the house, ready laughter in 
her eyes, as she murmured : “Those absurd 
Tryals !” 

Down on their knees dropped the long, shrouded 
figures, and began to ascend the steps in that dif- 
ficult position, heads bowed low, and hands 
thumping their breasts contritely. When they 
had reached the upper step — fortunately, the In- 
glesant house was approached by but four low, 
wide steps — the figures stopped, bent still lower, 
till their foreheads touched the piazza floor, and 
then they began to speak, slowly, monotonously, 
both together. 


But, after All ! 3 1 3 

“Mr. Inglesant,” the chiming voices, consider- 
ably muffled by the sacking, said, “we have stolen 
from you ! Not for keeps, still we weeps, get no 
sleeps! Ere we eat, at your feet we repeat: 
Give us pardon that’s complete. We repent that 
we went and took the novel ; oh, relent ! Here to- 
night in your sight we wear sackcloth — that’s all 
right ! Sinners should, but we’re good, good for 
trials. Ashes — wood, real wood ashes on our 
head, (not burned there, although they’re red), 
we are wearing for to show, sackcloth, ashes signs 
of woe I We can’t eat to-night a bit, at your table 
we can’t sit, till you bid us rise and live, saying : 
Tryals, I forgive!” 

There was a shout at this rhymed speech, de- 
livered like prose, yet with an expression that must 
have moved the stoniest heart. Mr. Inglesant 
rose to the occasion. 

Controlling his quivering voice he replied : 
“Worse crimes than yours hath wit atoned. 
Lay off your sackcloth and ashes, and put on the 
garments of joy and feasting. Not only are you 
forgiven, but we are heavily your debtors. To- 
night, at the coming-out party of my novel, you 
who set it free are to sit on my either hand to 


3*4 


Daddy’s Daughters 

prove you the founders of the feast. Penitents, 
you are absolved 

The Tryals arose, assisted by Gay and Vere, for 
their strait garments made rising a difficult mat- 
ter, and without a word they backed around the 
house to enter it by the side door. 

“You’d better rip these things up the side, Gay,” 
said a changed voice from the depths of one of the 
penitential robes. “We’re smothered.” 

Gay hastily ran in and borrowed the carving 
knife, with which she made rapid slashes in each 
sackcloth envelope. Tryphena and Tryphosa 
emerged, dark red in hue, but not a little pleased 
with the laughter which they were still hearing 
from the older people whom they had left. 

“You are quite the craziest girls on earth !” said 
Gay, weak from laughing. “What in the world 
made you think of such a thing? And how can 
you people keep up nonsense for ever and ever?” 

“How can a fish swim all day and every day?” 
retorted Tryphosa. 

“How can he do anything else — in the water?” 
supplemented Tryphena. “So, similarly, being in 
the world how can the Burroughs help cutting up ? 
Do get Amos to shoo Noddy back to the house! 


But, after All ! 315 

If he’s turned around and firmly shooed he’ll go 
home all right.” 

The long windows of the Inglesant dining room 
opened toward the west. The sun was setting in 
a blaze of glory which suggested to Gay’s im- 
agination the effulgence from Daddy’s fame which 
was about to illumine the Inglesant Place. 

The glass and the old silver, even the polished 
mahogany, gave back the sun’s brightness, twink- 
ling merrily as if to say : ‘‘Yes, old fellow, you saw 
us brought into this old house a hundred years 
ago, and we are glad together that its best days 
are coming, aren’t we?” 

Tryphena and Tryphosa, having shed their 
sackcloth and ashes, came out rather more re- 
splendent than usual, proving themselves very 
much of a piece with the general run of humanity, 
which likes to get done with penance and to go on 
as if nothing had happened. They sat next to 
Mr. Inglesant at the head of the table; every time 
Mrs. Hardtwitt looked up at the “Ruby Doublets” 
her very eyeglasses seemed to twinkle — she re- 
garded the Tryals as an inexhaustible joke. 

There is no use in describing good things to eat. 
How can acrid black ink represent the colours and 


3i 6 Daddy’s Daughters 

odours and flavours of crisp lettuce, snowy 
chicken, golden mayonnaise, clear jellies, eggs- 
and-butter burdened cakes, coffee of indescribable 
fragrance and flavour? Paul Revere, John Han- 
cock, and Nathan Hale ate as if they had just 
escaped the rigours of V alley Forge. V ere sighed 
as he met his last crumb and vanquished it, re- 
membering that he could come home but once a 
week from Harvard, and that he should be gone 
so soon. '‘Such a supper makes a fellow doubt 
the good of the higher education, sir,” he said 
plaintively in reply to Mr. Inglesant’s interroga- 
tive eyebrows. 

There was a young moon just slipping away to 
its childishly early bedtime when the party came 
out on the lawn. Gay, in advance as usual, was 
the first to spy it, and she hastily closed the swing- 
ing window behind her and energetically wheeled 
everybody around, and ushered them out, two or 
three at a time, right shoulder first, to salute the 
moon auspiciously. "For this is Daddy-dear’s 
good-luck party, you know!” she laughingly ex- 
plained. 

"If only we could dance on the lawn !” said Miss 
Wrenn, eyeing Amos’ velvety turf longingly. 


But, after All ! 3 1 7 

could send Vere home after his violin, but 
the fiddler cannot be a dancer,” said Daddy. 

“Malone plays dance music like all the ancient 
kings of Ireland melted down,” suggested Mrs. 
Hardtwitt. 

“Oh, may we have him around? Vere, will 
you get your fiddle?” cried Sibyl. 

Vere’s long legs flew across the lawn toward the 
hedge, and his voice floated back to them 
singing : 

“ ‘ Said the man to Sandy: Will you lend me your fiddle ? 
Said the man to Sandy: Will you lend me your fiddle ? 
Said the man to Sandy: Will you lend me your fiddle ? 
Oh, yes, I will, said Sandy.’” 

He was back again in a twinkling with the violin 
case under his arm. Anstiss was dispatched for 
“My Loan,” who came back with her broadly 
smiling, and hastily removing from his lips the 
last trace of his highly appreciated supper. 

Mrs. Plummer looked perturbed at this turn of 
events, but “My Loan” betrayed nothing of 
family affairs in the cheerful face which he pre- 
sented to the company. Putting Vere’s fiddle 
under his ear, he fell to tuning it with delight. 
The way he rattled off “Money Musk” and “The 


3i 8 Daddy’s Daughters 

Irish Washerwoman” by way of warming up the 
dancers, proved that Mrs. Hardtwitt had not un- 
duly vaunted his powers. When he had got every 
foot tapping the grass impatiently “My Loan” 
began to play a two-step, and Daddy and Mrs. 
Hardtwitt, Vere and Rosamond, Cocky and Miss 
Wrenn, Hale and Gay, Tryphena and Gladys, 
Tryphosa and Sibyl, Anstiss and Drusilla, and 
Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Plummer began to 
dance so fast and so well that Miss Wrenn’s little 
Irish maids — who had come around the house to 
see the fun — forgot themselves and marked the 
time with one foot and clapping hands, and nod- 
ding heads, as if they had been at the fair in 
County Kerry. 

“Such goings-on!” ejaculated Mary Frances, 
who had not stolen around like the borrowed 
maids, but who with Amos, flanked by Trouble 
and Pickaninny in their decorations, was frankly 
seated on the lower step of the side door watching 
the dancing. 

“Nothin’ to object to, Mary Frances,” said 
Amos. 

“For the land sakes, who thought of objectin’ ?” 
demanded his wife. “I’ve lived long enough to 


But, after All ! 3 1 9 

know you ought to thank the Lord for happiness. 
But I must say Mrs. Plummer dancin’ does put 
me in mind of the Psalmist’s saying that the little 
hills skipped like lambs.” 

The older dancers found the greensward just a 
trifle hard on the breath to dance on so soon after 
supper, and they dropped out of the dance early. 

Cocky caught Priscilla into Miss Wrenn’s place 
and the children kept on as if they would never 
tire. At last even they did stop for a few minutes, 
and Rosamond and Gay drifted up to their Daddy- 
dear, and rested their flushed cheeks against his 
arm as he stood talking with Mrs. Hardtwitt in 
the middle of the lawn. 

“We were saying, my flower maidens, what a 
game of consequences we — you and I — have been 
playing this summer,” said Mrs. Hardtwitt, fan- 
ning Rosamond, with a curious Calcutta fan 
which Mr. Inglesant had brought to her. “First 
of all, I came to these hills for the summer, 
and I happened to be a publisher’s wife. Then 
you two Inglesant blossoms came up the hills to 
turn the other blossoms of your old garden to 
profit. Thus we became friends. And then the 
episode of the purloined novel, and its coming out 


320 Daddy’s Daughters 

through my husband’s house. And that is not the 
end; rather it is the beginning of all the conse- 
quences that are to follow our fortunate summer.” 

“Oh, yes, indeed !” cried Rosamond. “Gay and 
I talk and talk about it ! It is so wonderful, and 
so wonderfully good !” 

Cocky, seeing the four as they stood, had an 
inspiration. Giving Vere and Hale, and the 
never-behindhand Tryals a hint, he took Sibyl 
and Anstiss by the hand and raced them up to 
their father, sisters, and Mrs. Hardtwitt before 
they had time to ask why. Then seizing a hand 
of each of the older twins he started a circle with 
Tryphena and Tryphosa as its beginning. In- 
stantly the little party caught the idea and joined 
hands all around. They began to dance wildly 
around the group in the centre, singing under the 
leadership of Vere and Cocky, to the classic air 
of “Johnny, Get Your Gun,” the simple but com- 
prehensive words: “Daddy and his daughters, 
daughters and their Daddy, Publisher and Author, 
hurrah, hurrah!” Which they repeated, “My 
Loan” taking up the air and accompanying them, 
until they broke down breathless from exercise 
and shouting. 


f 


But, after All ! 321 

“Well, that was fun!” gasped Mrs. Plummer, 
sinking panting into the chair which Hale offered 
her with a bow. 

Soon after this Mrs. Hardtwitt was driven 
away by “My Loan” to the Sugawnee. 

“Mind, girls, you’re all to lunch with me to- 
morrow; the four Inglesants and the four — two 
pairs — of Burroughs and all,” she called back as 
she started away. 

“Not likely to forget 1” Tryphena and Tryphosa 
returned together. 

Mrs. Burroughs marshalled her lively crew of 
seven for their departure, via the hedge; Mrs. 
Plummer and Gladys had already departed. 

Vere, Cocky, and Hale stood side by side and 
bowed low. “The best tea party ever,” said Vere 
as spokesman. “What should we do without the 
Inglesants, their Daddy and his daughters ?” 

“What are they going to do without you, Vere; 
only a glimpse of you on Saturdays and Sundays, 
and the rest of the time a howling wilderness?” 
retorted Gay. 

“We’ll do the howling,” said Tryphena and 
Tryphosa. 

Miss Wrenn kissed her girls a loving good- 


322 Daddy’s Daughters 

night and went away, under the escort of her 
maids, the last to depart. Daddy turned to the 
four girls lingering with him on the broad steps. 
“A happy evening, chickabiddies, but the quiet, all- 
to-ourselves-and-no-one-else feeling is sweetest, 
isn’t it ?” he said, putting his arms around the four 
girls at once, as they nestled, tired but happy, 
close to him. 

“Oh, yes!” said Sibyl and Anstiss together in 
hearty agreement. 

“Having you is having all the world. Daddy- 
dear,” said Rosamond. 

“Because, you see, we’ve always been just 
Daddy’s Daughters, and it fills us up,” added Gay, 
with her look of loving pride. 


THE END 


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By CARROLL WATSON RANKIN 

TWO STORIES FOR GIRLS 


Dandelion Cottage 

Illustrated by Mmes. Shinn and Finley. $1.50 

Four young girls secure the use of a tumble-down 
cottage, on condition that they shall keep the grounds 
in order. They set up housekeeping under numerous 
disadvantages, and have many amusements and queer 
experiences. 

“A capital story. It is refreshing to come upon an author 
who can tell us about real little girls, with sensible, ordinary 
parents, girls who are neither phenomenal nor silly. Simple, 
wholesome, and withal most entertaining.” — Outlook. 

‘‘The humor of the tale is well borne out in the pictures.” — 
Dial. 

‘‘ The story is one of cheerfulness and fun, and is to be warmly 
commended as one of the best of the Boston Herald. 

‘‘ The story is a story for its own sake, brightly and cheerfully 
told .” — Chicago Tribune. 


The Girls of Gardenville 

Illustrated by Mary Wellman. i2mo. $1.50 

Interesting, amusing, and natural stories of a girls' 
club — “The Sweet Sixteen” of Gardenville. The 
doings of these girls at home, among themselves assem- 
bled, or on excursions, are pleasantly, healthfully, and 
wholesomely related. 

‘‘ It is pleasant to have another book about a group of merry, 
natural girls, who have the attractions of innocence and youth- 
ful faults. ‘The Sweet Sixteen ’ Club made fudge, and went on 
picnics, and behaved just as jolly, nice maidens should.”— C>«/- 
look. 

‘‘ The same cheerfulness of activity that hovered around ‘ Dan- 
delion Cottage’ is perceptible around ‘The Girls of Garden- 
ville ’ "—Chicago Tribune. 

‘‘ Will captivate as many adults as if it were written for them. 
. . . The secret of Mrs. Rankin’s charrn is her naturalness . . . 
real girls . . . not young ladies with ‘pigtails,’ but girls of six- 
teen who are not twenty- five — deserves much credit ... as 
original as amusing . . . positively relreshing.” —Boston Tran- 
script. 


Henry Holt and Company 

Publishers (viii ’06) New York 


CHAMPLIN’S YOUNG FOLKS' 

Cyclopaedia of Natural History 

By J. D. Champlin and F. A. Lucas 
With over 800 illustrations. 725 pp. $2.50 

A whole “nature library” about animals prepared by experts. 
Scientific facts are presented in simple language, and are enlivened 
by anecdotes, personal experiences, and references to history, art, 
and literature. 

The illustrations are not only superior as animal pictures, but 
are genuinely illustrative, since they show the creature in its natural 
surroundings and characteristic action. 

Extinct animals are fully treated, because these strange forms 
are fascinating to children, and because they illustrate the derivation 
of such familiar living animais as birds, horses, and dogs. 

“A full menagerie of all sorts of animals, with a multitude of pictures. 
... A wonderful exhibition, and the story of each individual is interesting 
and calculated to stimulate the youthful mind in research. . . . Pictures care- 
fully reproduced, so that they represent the creatures in their real forms and 
proportions .” — Brooklyn Eagle. 


CHAMPLIN’S YOUNG FOLKS’ 

Cyclopaedia of Literature and Art 

With 270 illustrations. 604 pp. 8vo. $2.50 

Brief accounts of the great books, buildings, statues, pictures, 
operas, symphonies, etc. 

“ Few poems, plays, novels, pictures, statues, or fictitious characters that 
children — or most of their parents— of our day are likely to inquire about will 
be missed here. . . . Mr. Champlin’s judgment seems unusually sound— will 
be welcome and useful.” — Nation. 

“ Every schoolboy should have it on his study table. . . . The range of 
the volume is very wide, for besides those items of classical knowledge which 
constitute the average school encyclopaedia, we have brief descriptions given 
of modern books, poems, inventions, pictures, and persons about which the 
lad of the period should be acquainted. . . . The pictures in the volume are 
varied and truly illustrative. Old pictures and sculpture are presented in the 
usual line of drawings, but modern scenes and buildings are pictured through 
excellent half-tone reproductions of photographs.”— A^. Y. Times Saturday 
Review. 

Earlier Volumes of Champlin's Yout^ Folks^ Cyclopaedia* 
With numerous illustrations. 8vo. $2*50 each* 

COMMON THINGS* PERSONS and PLACES* 
GAMES and SPORTS* 

1 2 -page circular y with sample pages of Champlin s Young 
Folks' Cyclopcedias and his other books, free. 

IjCXlDV Ur^lT kr 29 West 23d Street, New York 

nClNKl nULl (X 378 Wabash Avenue, Chicago 

vm ’os 


The Boys of Bob’s Hill 

By CHARLES PIERCE BURTON 

Illustrated by George A. Williams. i2mo. $1.25. 

A lively story of a party of boys in a small New England 
town. Fun, sport, and exciting adventures are every-day 
matters. On holidays everything happening in their neigh- 
borhood leads up to hair-breadth escapes or jolly mishaps. 

“ A first-rate juvenile ... a real story for the live human boy — any 
boy will read it eagerly to the end . . . quite thrilling adventures.” — 
Chicago Record-Herald. 

“Tom Sawyer would have been a worthy member of the Bob’s Hill 
crowd and shared their good times and thrilling adventures with 
uncommon relish. ... A jolly group of youngsters as nearly true to 
the real thing in boy nature as one can ever expect to find between 
covers.” — Christian Register. 


Nelson’s Yankee Boy 

By FREDERICK H. COSTELLO, author of “On Fighting 
Decks in 1812.” 

Illustrated by W. H. Dunton. i2mo. $1.50. 

An American sailor boy is impressed by the English and 
is present at Trafalgar and Nelson’s death. The story con- 
cludes with a sea-fight in our own War of 1812. 

“ Most interesting . . . certain to be enjoyed by any intelligent 
boy.” — Outlook. 

“A rattling good story.” — Philadelphia Press. 

“ A boy of whom all ‘ Yankees’ may be proud ... is entertaining, 
oftentimes thrilling. Nor is there anything improbable about it; the 
boy is honest and true, and the whole tone of the book is invigorating.” 
— Chicago Tribune. 


Prince Henry’s Sailor Boy 

By OTTO VON BRUNECK. Freely Translated and 
Adapted by Mary J. Safford 

With illustrations by George A. Williams. i2mo. $1.50. 

A tale of life in the German Navy to-day. Claus Erichsen 
goes to Japan, China, Africa, and elsewhere, and has a few 
troubles, but many more jolly adventures. 

“ Well written and interesting.”— 

“ A complete and, we are sure, able picture of the life lived by a 
German sailor lad. ... A brisk, interesting plot.” — Providence Journal. 

“ Excellently adapted to the taste of American youth ... a first- 
rate story. ... It has plenty of adventure.” — Philadelphia Press. 

“Told in a way to keep the young eyes steadily at work from the 
first page.” — Washington Star. 


Henry Holt and Company 

Publishers New York 


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